


my day will come (if it takes a lifetime)

by or-ng-c-ss-dy (o_r_ng_c_ss_dy)



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Casual Writing - Freeform, Character Study, Crying, Developing Relationship, Lowercase, M/M, Masturbation, References to Depression, Road Trips, Set in 2017 before Chuck wins the PWG belt, Wrestling, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28037904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_r_ng_c_ss_dy/pseuds/or-ng-c-ss-dy
Summary: he’s a long way from reseda.or how chuck’s plans don’t necessarily work out until they do.or how he learned everything and nothing about himself.
Relationships: Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor
Comments: 47
Kudos: 36





	1. 07/03/2017

**Author's Note:**

> something about chuck's run up to winning the pwg belt in 2017 just makes me emotional in ways that i can't really describe. so i'm just gonna have chuck describe it instead.
> 
> this fic is going to be long. no way around it, this is a long fic. i'm a little under halfway done with it as i write this, and i'm going to be posting weekly. the prologue is the shortest chapter by far.
> 
> title is from "if it takes a lifetime" by jason isbell. all of the parts of this fic are gonna have a song, they're not required listening but it makes me feel good.
> 
> anyway, enjoy.

look, he had meant to get himself a ticket sooner. but, honestly, it hadn’t felt real until excalibur texted to make sure that he had gotten his flight all sorted out.

and he had been in such a state that...well. he hadn’t. but there were always flights to la or somewhere close, he could hitch it the rest of the way there if need be. and, yet, there were somehow no flights, not anywhere close. it was like california was fucking closed for business or something like that, hell, there weren’t any flights anywhere close. the closest he could get was chicago for far too much money, plus having to rent a car, it wouldn’t have been worth it.

he wasn’t going to miss it for the fucking world though, his last chance at doing something with himself, at not being useless at everything he’s ever done. his last chance to prove that all the pain and heartache, the long drives, the longer drives home, was all worth it. because, if he was being honest, it really hadn’t felt worth it in a long time. 

maybe he should’ve retired in 2015.

chuck told excalibur that he’d make it, and he meant it. no matter what, he was going to be there. it was just going to take him forty hours, almost three thousand miles, alone in his shitty little honda civic that was older than his entire wrestling career. whatever, it was going to make it. 

he just...had a good feeling about it.


	2. 07/04/2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i’m not the man they think i am at home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are, part two. or part one, i guess, since the other is more like a prologue. i can't help but feel nervous posting this fic, i think it's because it's pretty far outside of my comfort zone. but i also really want to share it with everyone, i think it's important.
> 
> song for this part is rocketman by elton john. yeah, seriously, it's a chuck song.
> 
> enjoy!

zack sabre jr, he had lost to him once before. choked out in the center of the ring, people had been rooting for him, counting on him, and he let them down. it was standard for him of course, letting people down. 

still, orange woke him up at five am like he wasn’t the laziest man on the planet. hell, he had woken up earlier, had a pot of coffee ready and everything. he looked dead on his feet, rumpled and worn out, but, as half-conscious as he was, it had still been a touching gesture.

they shared a cup of coffee in relative silence, and then orange helped him load the car up. He pushed a plastic bag full of snacks into his hands, keeping close.

“so you don’t have to stop before leaving philly.” he said, and chuck was so touched that he had to touch him.

he pulled orange into his arms, tucking his face into his neck. he smelled like sleep and home and all of those things that he might need to think about later, but he held him close and wondered what a moment could really mean.

“come with me.” chuck didn’t say, because he knew that orange had prior engagements, and probably better things to do than to see him lose to zack again.

“call me when you win.” orange said instead, a small, sleepy smile on his face.

“and when i lose?”

orange made a face at that, something caught between a frown and something that chuck couldn’t read.

“call me anyway.” he said, tilting his face up a bit.

if orange was taller, their noses would be brushing and it would’ve felt right to...well, it felt right anyway, and it would’ve felt right to lean down and... 

and chuck sorta didn’t want to let go. but let go he had to if he ever wanted to make it to reseda. instead, he dropped a soft kiss between too-blond strands of hair and hoped that it said enough for now, reluctant to pull back.

“come with me.” chuck did say, before he could stop himself.

and orange frowned, sweet, sleepy.

“you know that i would if i could.” he said, and chuck knew it.

so he set off, alone into the early morning, a to-go mug of coffee that tasted like home in the cup holder. and he could only hope that he made it to reseda in time.

pittsburgh gave him trouble, but it always did. the trouble of being alone with his thoughts, of taking the wrong exit and heading for kentucky instead. settling down for a life he never wanted, calling up girls he wasn’t that interested in until one of them agreed to give him another shot.

a normal life. kids, a job his degree was supposed to get him, white picket fence, a yard for a dog. easy, simple, expected…

he drove past the exit. easy, simple, expected, it really wasn’t for him. if it had been, he would’ve picked it the first time he had woken up with a persistent ache in his back and in his stomach from a hunger for more than food.

well, and for food. god, wrestling really didn’t pay.

and he drove and he drove, alone with his thoughts and the open road, which was never where he wanted to be. god, he wished orange had come with him or that he had thought to get a plane ticket and avoid all of this mess entirely. 

the snacks orange had packed for him kept him from having to stop for lunch until he reached columbus, ohio at the very least. beyond the traffic in pittsburgh, there was nothing really stopping him until the hunger in the pit of his stomach took over and he was pulling off to find something a little better than fast food.

chuck didn’t really know why, he was more than fine with finding a mcdonald’s. maybe it was the whole ‘big match’ thing that made him want something a little healthier. he regretted it the moment the salad he had ordered was placed in front of him but...whatever. he ate it anyway, it was probably better in the long run.

he stared down into the bowl in front of him and thought about the belt again. it probably wasn’t worth the drive if he was being honest, excalibur would’ve given him a shot at a later date if he said that he couldn’t make it. it would’ve been fine to skip it, but battle of los angeles was next and the title wasn’t ever defended there, plus he was never booked on that show anyway so he didn’t have to worry about being booked in the tournament.

and, there was just something about the name of the show. pushin forward back, it was nonsense on the surface level. but chuck could only think that he was the one pushing forward just to go back. because, when he lost to zack again, when zack choked him out like he had before, there really wouldn’t be anything left for him. 

fucking pathetic. he needed to get out of there before he cried in a restaurant in ohio. no one should cry in a fast casual restaurant in ohio, not even someone without any dignity like chuck taylor should cry in a fast casual restaurant in ohio. especially not into an empty salad bowl.

he threw out his trash and wiped his eyes, satisfied to find them dry. he wasn’t upset over his own shortcomings, they were just a regular part of him. hell, they were every regular part of him, they didn’t affect him much at all. he was chuck taylor, a wrestler, he had dark brown hair and green eyes, he was 6’2, he was from kentucky, he lived in philadelphia with orange cassidy, and he was going to lose his match to win the pwg belt. just the facts.

he had made his peace with it the moment excalibur decided to give him that second chance, one last ride to prove himself. he had said that the fans wanted to see it but a part of him knew that excalibur perhaps wanted to see it too, even if it was strange to acknowledge the very idea that someone out there believes in him. not when he didn’t even believe in himself.

but excalibur would never say it, not in so many words, so chuck didn’t have to acknowledge it. instead, he hit the road in his shitty honda civic and tried to keep his mind off of anything but the way the college stations fuzzed in and out when he was just starting to get into a song, and the sun high above him and the road below him. after all, he was far away from the belt and reseda still, having thousands of miles left to drive.

chuck got a little weak outside of dayton, that good feeling he’d had yesterday creeping back up on him. the thought of being the one to raise the belt at the end of the match, going through hell and back to finally win at something. the perfect moment, zack hoisted up into the air, slamming down into the mat, the reseda faithful screaming.

one.

two.

three.

and he knew that he couldn’t let himself get hopeful but the thought was nice. being the one to win it all in the end. thinking like that would make losing feel even worse, but, once he started to think about it, he really couldn’t stop.

calling orange, telling him that he had won. hearing his voice warming the line, wishing he was there to see it, knowing that he’d be there at home when he got there. maybe he could say everything he had meant to say, the words he should’ve said years ago, the confidence of winning something for once outweighing his own trepidation. not getting in his own way for once.

maybe he could, yeah. stop getting in his own way.

or maybe it was dumb to think that a belt could fix all of his problems. plus, he was probably not going to win it anyway so...whatever. maybe it wasn’t getting in his own way as much as it was his self-preservation instinct. 

whatever. he was fine. he was going to lose and he was prepared for it. and he’d call orange, and orange would be fine with it too. and he’d say nothing to him besides that he had lost, and orange would be fine with that as well. there was no setting himself up for disappointment when he was always a disappointment.

yeah. whatever.

thinking about it like that put him in a bad mood, had him gripping the steering wheel tighter. he still had so many miles to go, it felt insurmountable. there’d still be no harm in turning around, driving back to philly and getting right back in his bed. just disappearing for the rest of the week, keeping his phone shut off and just...not existing. 

it sounded nice, if he was being honest. nice enough that he pulled off the highway and into a rest stop. it wasn’t one of the nice ones with the well lit convenience stores and fast foods, just one of the shitty ones where you could use the bathroom and maybe buy a snack from one of the vending machines if you were willing to risk it. the ones with ice cream too, like anyone’s ever bought ice cream from one of those vending machines in a million years.

hey, but it beat pissing on the side of the road. potentially getting arrested, having to call orange to come pick him up from jail for pissing on the highway, that’d be embarrassing. well, at least the dirt sheets wouldn’t care enough to write about him, it could just be between him and orange. another reason for orange to not want anything to do with him, even though he’s probably done way worse while drunk, just like chuck definitely had before.

yeah, it probably would be easy to disappear. turn right back around, quit wrestling forever. it beat dying in the ring without insurance. maybe he could get a job that gave him insurance, then he could fix everything that was wrong with him, including his shitty brain. but mostly his shoulder, he felt sore all over if he was being honest, it was sore as he leaned against the side of his car, breathing in the highway and the scent someone’s nearby cigarette smoke. fresh air.

he was going to do it, just turn around and forget about the whole thing. but then excalibur was texting him in some group chat with a bunch of people who he didn’t have the numbers of, telling them all the match card for ‘pushin forward back’, laying out that he was in the main event to try and win that damn belt.

shit, he’d probably already had the graphics made. it’d be shitty to just no show, even if it would make it easier to retire if he was blacklisted from pwg because he was some shitty little flake, he didn’t really want to do that to excalibur. so, whatever, one last match to lose and then he could retire in disgrace like he was always meant to.

and then he texted some shitty joke about hoping his shitbox car could make it, and then his phone was lighting up immediately with a call from excalibur and chuck was answering it, even though he didn’t know anyone who still called people instead of texting, putting the phone up to his ear.

“you’re driving?” excalibur said, a little too loud and surprised.

“hello to you too. yeah, i’m driving.”

“from philly?” he said, louder.

“stop yelling. where else would i be driving from, that’s where i live.”

and then he had to explain to excalibur why he was driving and how he waited too long to get a plane ticket. excalibur clowned on him hard for it, laughing in his face...well, his ear, it was over the phone after all and he wasn’t anywhere near reseda yet. he’d probably laugh in his face when he got there, and chuck knew that he deserved it.

“where are you anyway?” excalibur asked after he had finally calmed down.

“i dunno,” chuck said, turning and looking at the rest stop building behind him, sometimes they had town names on them, but it wasn’t like excalibur would know the name of the town anyway, “somewhere in ohio.”

that didn’t seem to satisfy him, but it’s not like he’d know where lewisburg, ohio was anyway. shit, maybe he should’ve planned this whole thing out better.

“okay,” he said, dragging out the vowels, “just. text me when you find a place to stay for the night, and don’t drive all the way through like an idiot.”

“alright, dad.”

and then excalibur was telling him not to call him that, so chuck called him grandpa instead and excalibur told him to go fuck himself but in that laughing sort of way. chuck probably wasn’t going to text him when he found a place to stay but, as he got back into the car, he did feel a little lighter. less like the world was closing in on him.

the only reason he was still going was because excalibur had already made the graphics for the match, and it’d be a real dick move to no-show. plus, he’d already made it this far and he really just wanted to be out of ohio already. and, to turn around have to drive back through ohio? that’d really suck, that’d be too much ohio for one day.

and the thought of maybe, perhaps, possibly winning the belt buzzed in the back of his mind until he sort of gave up on driving after reaching indianapolis. he stopped for dinner, getting the burger he wished he had gotten at lunch. he tossed his stuff into the room and found a bar to drink at.

he’d usually get another drink but, well, he did have to leave early in the morning. and he didn’t want to be hungover while driving or, worse, still drunk and not able to leave until he sobered up while being awake which was the worst thing ever. even though he wanted another drink to quiet the voice in his head, telling him that he was never going to win that belt and was also probably going to die alone, he headed back to the motel kinda early to try and get some sleep.

he found that was tired anyway though, even though he was only a little buzzed.

before he fell asleep for the night though, he grabbed his phone and texted excalibur that he’d found a motel. 

it just felt like the right thing to do.


	3. 07/05/2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i don’t know what i’m afraid of_  
>  but i’m afraid one day it will all fall away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, it's that time of the week again. hope you're still enjoying this continuing character study.
> 
> song for this part is size of the moon by pinegrove.

having to wake up early was definitely the worst part of all of this. chuck wasn’t tired per say, an actual good night’s sleep for once making sure of that, but he felt weird in the early morning. flat and intangible against the lumpy surface of the motel mattress. 

he blinked up at the water spotted ceiling, the place was a hell of a lot grosser in the morning light. shit, he should’ve checked the place for bugs. whatever, he didn’t have any bites on him so the place was probably fine.

still, it made it a lot easier to get out of bed and get ready for the day. he’d probably stayed in worse places, a single room like this shared with five or six other guys, sleeping on the filthy carpet with orange tucked neatly into his side, drew on the other side of him with his back turned. all three of them always seemed to lose the coin flip to see who got the bed or couch.

maybe he was just getting too old. or too soft. he just used to do a lot of worse things in general, treated people like shit for his own personal gain. maybe he was losing his edge or something. it helped him keep friends around for longer though so...that was a plus, he guessed. if it meant that he couldn’t stay at such shitty places anymore, so be it.

he took the quickest shower of all times, quicker than when there’d be five other guys waiting to shower and he’d take his time just to be an asshole. fuck, young chuck was a real dick. but the tile grout looked pretty gross, so he figured that he shouldn’t spend anymore time in the place than he had to.

yeah, chuck should’ve planned the trip out better. he wasn’t in his twenties anymore, he needed a little more comfort. just a few steps up, nothing major, but just...some place a little bit better.

it was weird to make it to a place in time to have some breakfast, he was never up this early. he almost didn’t know what to order, settling on some fried eggs and toast and a cup of coffee. the woman who put his plate in front of him seemed tired, but she gave him a smile anyway. probably because she wanted a tip, shitty people wouldn’t give her a tip if she didn’t smile.

chuck wondered if she thought that he might be one of those shitty people who needed some form of performance in order to tip her. like, if she didn’t smile at him, he wouldn’t tip her or something like that. ask to speak to her manager. just because her mouth didn’t move the right way when she put his food down in front of him.

and, sure, he might’ve not tipped someone a few times when he was younger, but that was because he was a colossal dick as a kid. he used to say something about not wanting to be expected to do it, maybe that he couldn’t afford to do it. but, really, it was just because he was a little jackass.

he finished his eggs and tipped the woman well enough. despite it being early, he was actually in a decent mood, he felt good about himself in a way. he still had miles to go of course, it would probably be a few days until he reached reseda, but excalibur texted him back with a thumbs up emoji and orange was texting him to ask where he was, and he felt good.

like the world, time, was all moving around him and he didn’t feel like he was standing still for once. he held his phone over his head, taking a picture of himself with the sign for the diner in it and smiled. then he thought about it, made the worst face he could possibly muster, and took the selfie to send to orange.

chuck figured that he couldn’t just wait around in the parking lot for orange to respond. also, if he sent a picture of himself in return, chuck might just get caught up in staring at it and waste time on studying his features, the way his blue eyes might be crinkling up at the corners, the way he looks in the morning, a little sleepy and soft. so, instead, he started his car and started to continue the long drive west.

he wondered what orange was doing anyway, chuck could picture him, standing in their kitchen. he was probably filling the coffee pot with some water, remembering at the last second that he didn't need to make a whole pot. maybe that was why he texted him, he filled the pot with water and thought of him.

it made him wish he was there. he could wrap his arms around him, push his nose into his hair. they aren't...y'know, but it was his fantasy orange and he could picture him relaxing into his arms if he wanted to.

shit, he got caught up in thinking about orange anyway. at least he was driving and thinking about him. probably not great to be distracted like that but it wasn't his fault that orange was distracting.

it was hard to think of anyone besides orange when his mind was set on thinking about him but, still, his thoughts drifted after a little while.

because driving reminded him of being a hell of a lot younger, loading the car completely full of guys who might be willing to take shifts or pay for gas money, driving for hours for the only guaranteed pay being a hot dog and a handshake, young and dumb enough that just the promise of being able to wrestle would’ve been enough to make the journey. 

chuck didn’t know if anyone else thought about that sort of stuff but, on some road trips when you stop at like a gas station or something, you may very well never stop at that one place ever again in your whole life. and then there are people that go to that place every day, people that he’s never gonna ever meet.

he never used to think about that sort of stuff before, the gas stations that a bunch of young wrestlers all piled into to raid the place for snacks, cigarettes, and a whole bunch of energy drinks, whatever cheap shit they could find to make it so they didn’t have to stop for lunch. the braver ones picking up some hot dogs or some of those shitty slices of dried up pizza. and then they all left the place and just...never went back ever.

and, sure, a gas station was a gas station. he'd been in plenty of them, he'd be in plenty of them in the future. but those places that he’d never go to again were starting to stick in his head, those permanent parts of other people's lives.

chuck worried about it sometimes, if he had been rude to those people just trying to make a living and not even cared in the past. because he had been awful to people he actually cared about, a long line of friends he had hurt.

and for what? did he even get anything out of it?

because drew was losing on two-oh-five live, and johnny was getting betrayed by his b-hole pervert tag partner-slash-potential lover on fake fcw, but at least they had quantifiably made it in some sense of the word.

but, hey. at least he had a shot at the pwg title. something that barely meant anything outside of reseda. but, fuck, it was the last chance for him.

that title meant everything to him, because, if he didn't win it, he'd really have nothing to show for any of the growing up he had done in the past few years.

shit, that put a bitter taste in his mouth. he gripped the steering wheel and tried to not think about anything at all, the things he wanted and probably wouldn't be able to have. 

and then the asshole in front of him slammed on their breaks, causing chuck to have to slam on his and hope, for a few seconds, that the person behind him was paying attention. luckily, they were, but chuck figured that maybe he shouldn’t be worrying about the past so much when the present could be fairly dangerous.

that was another thing he hadn’t thought about when he was younger. none of them did, they all thought they were invincible. maybe they had been in a way, or maybe they were all just selfish in that kid sort of way, where the world was just supposed to move around all of them. even his friends who weren’t total dicks had been that way.

the world was moving around him, that much had been true, but, sometimes, he had to move as well instead of just standing still and hoping that he actually was invincible.

and he wasn’t. he wasn’t invincible. he was probably gonna die in the ring some day, alone with no insurance, and people would say that they loved him at his funeral. but no one could love him if they knew the real him, and no one could love him if they didn’t know the real him. or the person who existed before he decided to start to try and make things a little better. try to be someone who couldn’t be called a good person, but could be called something halfway to not being shitty.

so, hey, maybe no one standing at his casket could say that they loved him for real. and maybe it was wishful thinking to think that there was going to be anyone there at all.

whatever.

it was probably too early to stop for lunch when he hit st. louis but he figured that he should reward himself for getting through the long hell of southern illinois, far away from the only interesting thing in the whole state. he might’ve wrestled in some of those towns when he was too young. making the drive with ricochet, who had also been too young and far too talented for any sort of place like that.

just another guy who was probably gonna leave him in the dust.

stupid. fuck, so stupid. and, yeah, he was self aware. wondering why he had to be like that, why he couldn’t help but think about how everything sorta sucked in ways that he had trouble defining. because, people told him that he was...like, not the worst person ever. fans, yeah, but also people that he had hurt. but, like it or not, there was that piece of shit that still lived deep in his skull, that told him that the only thing he was worth was the price of the knife he sunk into his friends’ backs.

he had done his wwe tryouts with, like, a bunch of people. drew, johnny, and they had all gotten signed. not right away as far as johnny went, but he got signed later, leaving chuck in the dust. and he still had friends, still had trent and orange, but he was watching his dreams slip away from him.

this really was his last shot.

but he wasn’t going to cry in a different fast casual restaurant. so he took it to go and sat in his car instead, but the tears didn’t fall like the food on the seat under him did, so he probably should’ve eaten inside after all.

chuck checked his phone and saw that orange had texted him back hours ago, a picture of himself in the morning sun. he had clearly just woken up, looking sleepy and soft, like chuck could suggest that they just go back to bed and he’d go with him. it made him feel a little lighter, the sight of those blue eyes crinkled up from the rare smile on his face.

because orange had been there too, had seen those worst parts of him. sitting in the passenger seat while he drove, humming along to the radio, slender fingers changing the dial until he could find something that they both liked. even if no one else in the car liked the song, it had never really been about them. chuck had been so worried about the past version of himself being self centered, he never really stopped to realize that he had cared about orange more than anyone else, including himself. 

even back then.

no, he wasn’t alone. he still had orange of course, he thought that he’d always have orange. and ricochet was still there for now, and trent probably was going anywhere even when he did betray him eventually. and it wasn’t like he never talked to drew or johnny, they still texted him.

and the pwg belt was just a belt. it probably didn’t matter anyway. but he had won belts before and...yeah, he really just wanted to be the one with his arm up at the end of the match, at the end of that long drive to reseda.

chuck finished his food but he thought that he wasn’t really ready to get back on the road yet. he needed to hear someone’s voice that wasn’t the one in his head. he thought about calling excalibur again, but he was probably busy setting up for the show. and then he thought about calling orange, god knows that he could stand to hear his voice warming up the line, but he stopped himself at the last second.

like a part of him didn’t deserve to talk to orange. not yet at least, not until he got there. because he might hear his voice and want to just turn right back around to go home to him instead of pushing on towards reseda. he needed to know for certain if he was a winner or a loser before he heard orange’s voice again, instead of being somewhere in between.

and, well, trent never picked up his phone. said that it wasn’t 1999 anymore and that, if chuck wanted to talk to him so bad, he could text or wait until they were in person. so, whatever.

instead, he dialed up drew. mainly because he was before johnny in his contacts, but he also figured that johnny was a little too busy with his own shit to deal with chuck’s, with the whole ‘weird pervert friend ciampa betraying him violently’ thing. shit, maybe he should get him a sympathy card.

before he could think about that any further, drew was picking up his phone after the third ring.

“wow, i can’t believe i have the phone number of a fuckin’ wwf superstar. lucky me, i get to talk to mister two-oh-five-live!” he exclaimed into the receiver, grinning wide at his own joke.

maybe he was trying to start a fight or something, maybe he needed drew to get pissed at him, but drew just laughed as well, huffing softly, fondly, into the phone.

“very funny. how’s the soul seeking road trip going?”

“shitty,” chuck said, “it’s not soul seeking, by the way, i just...forgot to get a ticket. how’d you know anyway?”

“orange told me,” drew said, “i can’t believe you forgot to buy a ticket and didn’t tell me, i wasted a whole day of not knowing and being able to make fun of you for it.”

and then chuck told him to fuck off, and drew didn’t. and...it was good. it had been awhile since he last talked to drew. like he was embarrassed or something, stuck in one place while drew moved on.

but drew was losing on 205 live and...and chuck was winning. he was winning, even if he was winning in what wasn’t considered to be the big leagues, he was winning and he had his last shot at winning it all.

so, yeah, maybe the pwg title wasn’t the most prestigious title but it was a hell of a lot better than having nothing. and he loved drew, but what did drew have besides some shitty contract that sounded a hell of a lot better on paper than it did in real life?

nothing. and chuck hadn’t been offered that contract but...fuck, maybe it didn’t matter. maybe the pwg title meant more than he thought it did if it meant being able to be...y’know… _him_. maybe that was the most important thing of all.

“are you even listening to me?” drew finally asked, and chuck had to laugh.

because they were friends but there was always something else there, something a little uglier, something a little more competitive. because drew had made it but, god, at what cost.

“yeah,” he said, finally, “say hi to gargano the next time you see him.”

he could feel drew rolling his eyes through the receiver.

“okay,” drew said, a little grouchy, “say hi to ricochet for me then.”

and he liked drew, they were friends. they’d always be friends. but, god, it felt good to have something over him. they exchanged terse pleasantries like always, and then chuck was on his way, his mind a buzzing emptiness until he hit oklahoma city and decided to stop for the night.

and, shit, maybe he should’ve tried to find a better place to stay. but he was tired and the place had some vacancies, and it wasn’t as gross as the place in indianapolis. he bought a six pack and a pizza, and watched someone else’s local news.

he remembered to text excalibur again and, after a moment, added drew to his list of people to keep updated. he had asked chuck to do so before they hung up earlier anyway, and he texted back right away like he had been expecting it, talking about that awful motel in hellertown that they had all stayed in several times.

and it got chuck thinking about the things he wouldn’t tell drew about that had happened in that same place, a hellertown motel that he remembered a little differently. a dark room, piled high with other wrestlers, soft snores surrounding them as he allowed himself to pull orange in a little too close. before he would let himself know what it meant to want to be that close to him, on the floor because they always lost the coin toss for the bed.

it made him think about the call with drew earlier, when he had asked him if he missed it. because...if chuck had ever gotten signed, he couldn’t help but think that he’d miss even the worst parts of it because wrestling was a sum of all of its parts. the good and the bad, and he hadn’t missed the way that drew had sighed softly before saying that he didn’t miss any of it.

he knew drew better than that though, knew when he was lying to himself to save himself from having to think too hard about the fact that, yeah, he probably did miss it. the good and the bad, the sum of all its parts. for every broken down car and shitty motel room, there was a roaring crowd and laughing so hard in said shitty motel rooms that you can’t breathe. and, y’know, life long friendships and...maybe finding something more.

cheesy shit. he needed to go to bed.

but, in that moment, starting up at the ceiling of a motel with all of his memories, he couldn’t help but think that the worst parts looked a little lighter for once.


	4. 07/06/2017

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i don’t need the world to see that i’ve been the best i can be._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah, this chapter is the reason for the rating being m. the rest of the fic is gonna be t-rated. i actually intended the whole thing to be t-rated but then this came up and i liked it too much, so here it is.
> 
> the song for this chapter is "francis forever" by mitski.
> 
> enjoy!

and, on the third morning of his trip, chuck jerked off in the shower.

it wasn’t that he was actively trying to avoid doing it, okay? it was just...he had been putting it off. like he didn’t deserve to do it, which was stupid, but there was something about jerking off in motels that just sort of made him sad. 

of course, a lot of things made him sad but that was neither here nor there, and ultimately not relevant to the whole ‘jerking off in the shower’ sort of thing.

he had only done in it in the shower out of habit anyway, from his days of sharing one motel room with a bunch of guys and needing to do it but not wanting to try to sneak one out when he thought everyone was asleep. of course, everyone else was doing it in the shower as well, it just wasn’t something that anyone talked about. mainly because it’d be really fucking weird for him to be knocking on the door and telling drew or someone to hurry up with the cranking it thing because he also needed to whack off.

the wall passed the sight test and he leaned against it, hissing as his back touched the cold tile and wrapping a hand around his dick, letting himself think about the past one last time. of nights when the shower hadn’t cut it, pulling orange closer, hand over his mouth to keep him quiet as they moved together on the floor, the other digging hard into his hips. rutting together, the soft sound of others breathing around them.

before they could let themselves want it, sneaking moments in dark rooms. orange was waiting for him at home, in the bed that they shared more often than not those days. there were plenty of things he could think about that were better than the way it felt to grind his hips against orange, blindly seeking friction in their stolen moments, but...well, he was feeling nostalgic.

chuck didn’t have much in the way of time, he wanted to get back on the road before it got too late, so he made it quick. dark room, light moment, digging his teeth into the back of orange’s hot, flushed neck to stop his own noises as his hips pushed in and in and in. orange shaking in his arms, wanting more, wanting to do it when they’re alone but not letting themselves do it because it didn’t count when they were on the road.

and then it had started to count, they started to get their own room, just the two of them. and then they started doing it at home too and...

chuck came with a grunt, cum splattering into his palm, dripping on the shower floor below him. isn’t cum bad for shower drains? shit. whatever, a place like this had probably seen a hell of a lot worse.

it had probably seen better too though. whatever, he’d settle for being somewhere in the middle.

he caught his breath and finished his shower. an orgasm would usually make him feel better in that sort of temporary way, but it just made him feel unsteady and itchy all over. he still had to go though, still had to hit the road.

leaving the past in the shower, chuck elected to skip the whole breakfast thing, not bothering to find a diner. after all, he didn’t really have the time after his shower took a little longer than intended. instead, he hit up one of those chain places for a sandwich and a cup of coffee on his way out. he ate it in his car, leaving oklahoma city far behind him, tossing his garbage into the passenger seat of the car.

hopefully, he’d be tossing something else there soon enough. well, not tossing it, he wouldn’t be tossing the pwg belt into his passenger side seat like a piece of garbage. he’d place it there, gently, look over at it every once in a while, sustaining him on the long drive back, the belt and the thought of what was waiting for him at home...

y’know. if he won the damn thing. he couldn’t get ahead of himself. he could be driving back empty handed, a regular disappointment. the usual affair. he still felt itchy and uneasy from earlier, the caffeine did nothing to settle the nerves in his stomach.

maybe he should’ve skipped the coffee or the orgasm, or maybe he should’ve just skipped town a long time ago. fuck. he felt the bad mood starting to build already, from the very beginning of his day. shit was already bad.

maybe he should’ve retired in 2015. he had all the buzz, people were talking about it, telling him to stay. maybe he should’ve gone instead, died a hero and all that shit. people would still be like ‘oh man, chuck taylor, why’d he retire? he was still so good’, instead of being like ‘chuck taylor, why’s that piece of shit still going? he’s never done anything good in his whole career, couldn’t even beat zsj for the pwg belt.’

fuck. he was gripping the steering wheel so tight that he was worried about ripping it clean off, stranding him in oklahoma. a real no-show piece of shit, stuck in oklahoma. maybe it was what he deserved.

he didn’t yank the steering wheel off and toss it out the window like he wanted to. instead, the radio station he had on went to static and he had to turn it to something else, something he didn’t really like but something he didn’t hate either, trying and failing to find a college station.

meaningless static. whatever. he just kept driving, trying to keep his head empty, trying to keep focused on the drive. he was almost halfway there, halfway to reseda. to the legion hall, to...to the belt. or the possibility of winning the belt.

chuck knew that he was lucky to be given not one but two chances, there were better wrestlers out there who hadn’t even gotten a chance. serious wrestlers, not goofball comedy morons like him. it seemed like a poor business decision if he was being honest, he wouldn’t book himself a single title shot, nevermind letting him do it twice. he still didn’t know why excalibur liked him that much, sure he won pretty much every single one of his matches the whole year, he had gotten pretty lucky. lots of people had gotten lucky and excalibur hadn’t booked _them_ for two title shots.

maybe that’s all he was. lucky. fighting for scraps, clawing his way up from the bottom. getting more desperate, doing more dangerous things in the ring, trying to stay in it. because, if you’re not in it, if you’re not talked about, you don’t get the booking. and people liked him, sure, but this really was his last chance.

if zack put him down in the center of that ring, there really was nothing left for him.

retiring in disgrace, going out in a blaze of no glory. maybe it’d be fitting...but maybe he didn’t want to go out like that. so, yeah, he was doing more and more of the dangerous things, but it was to secure his future.

he was going to win that belt or fucking die trying.

what other choices did he have? even if he won the belt, what else was he going to do? chuck knew that he couldn’t do this forever, he barely made any money as it was. sure, being the pwg champ would make him a hot name for a little while, but he knew that he probably wasn’t going to be able to hold onto it for more than thirty seconds. he was lucky, he wasn’t that lucky.

so...what? where? wwe didn’t want him, they made that perfectly clear. trent always said that he could get him to new japan, but he had his thing with rocky, even if they just lost the junior tag belts and he was thinking about going solo. being a heavyweight, moving on up in the world. if he left rocky behind, what would keep trent with him of all people? it was about time trent ditched him anyway.

so what did he have in his future? there really was nothing other than wwe and that rejection still stung like hell.

he didn’t know. but retiring sorta felt like a bitch move if he was being honest. like, he already did that pity party retirement tour in 2015, and then he just kept going. wrestling was all he knew, sure he had a degree, but...what? was he supposed to use it?

he hated feeling that way. drawn up into his own head, like every year was going to suck more than the last. like he’d hit his peak and it was all downhill from there. like people have figured that he’d checked out already, that he didn’t think he was worth any of the buzz he’d gotten as of late. like he’d said, it was all luck.

every year was worse than the last. he was getting older when everyone else was getting younger it seemed. every part of his body hurt, and guys like fire ant and ricochet only seemed to get better. and, yeah, ricochet was younger than him, but fire ant had to be like a thousand or so in ant years, so that didn’t explain shit.

chuck knew that he probably shouldn’t be thinking like that. old friends, old rivals, both that strange mix of both. he should probably love ricochet but couldn’t help but feel uneasy when he was around, should probably hate fire ant but couldn’t muster up the energy to feel that away about him anymore. 

he wondered if fire ant hated him. probably, the guy seemed pretty convicted in his feelings towards anyone. 

he did hate fire ant, a long time ago. old feuds fade, the guy shaved his head and he couldn’t bring himself to hate him anymore. chikara was probably what he deserved, tossing around tiny ants and scaring kids. he’d probably retire there, in obscurity, sad and grey and old. well past a prime that had never quite come. 

he’d met orange there. sitting cross-legged on the wrestle factory floor, introducing himself. they were a hell of a lot younger, dumber, and just all around worse people. they became better together.

and, fuck, maybe it was a stupid, cheesy thing to say but...maybe orange _was_ his future. maybe he should work on being the best version of himself for him, to be something worth coming home to. and maybe that started with that belt.

maybe he wasn’t worthy of any of it. but, thinking about orange back at home, he thought that he should bring him something. the belt...something else. he wasn’t going to say...y’know… _it_ but, well...maybe? sometime, in the future, he might possibly want to…

and he’s never thought about it before, not with any of the girls he had dated. but orange was different and...maybe he was worth…y’know...it?

he was getting ahead of himself though. they weren’t even dating officially, and there was still the chance that orange didn’t even want to do that. it was too far in the future to think about. he didn’t even know if he could even start to think about it being something he wanted, his brain just laughing it off.

getting married, and getting married to orange? he couldn’t even decide where to stop for lunch, couldn’t even decide if he wanted to try to be confident about winning the belt. he swung so quickly from thinking that he had this in the bag, that his momentum would swing and net him the pwg belt, to thinking that he had no chance in hell and that zack was going to beat his ass in three seconds flat, retiring him in disgrace. how the hell was he supposed to think about marrying orange?

so he didn’t think about it. and he picked his lunch, fast food, not his proudest choice. but he ate in his car in the parking lot and didn’t think about tears for once that trip, his brain itchy and weird, like he’d just jerked off even though it was hours ago.

orange would probably laugh in his face if he suggested marriage...unless he wanted it? he’d never heard him mention marriage, but they were both in their thirties, so...maybe it was on his mind too? and maybe he wanted to do it with chuck?

what the fuck? marriage? he really couldn’t think like that. 

but, y’know. it was a thing. a thing that people in their thirties did. they got their shit together, got a real job, settled down. and it was too late for him to get a real job, he was probably going to wrestle until he got too hurt or died in the ring with no insurance, but...he had some sort of control over that last part.

still, thinking about it made him feel weird. he didn’t know what he wanted. he was probably supposed to know but he didn’t. whatever. he should throw his garbage in the cans outside, throw away the trash from breakfast too, but his brain was buzzing with meaningless static and he really just wanted to keep going.

so he did. he didn’t even know where he was, just followed the navigation on his phone blindly, still in a daze. maybe he shouldn’t have jerked off that morning, he was feeling fine until that happened. he must’ve blown more than his load in the shower, shot off all of his already lacking self confidence down the drain.

it was just that it was hard to be confident about the future. he probably wasn’t going to win the belt and, even if he did, there was always going to be someone who was going to take it from him. always someone waiting in the wings and he was so beat down, so tired, that it was probably going to happen sooner rather than later. 

was it even worth it? to try and win the belt, knowing fully well that someone better was going to come along real quick? was he even worthy of it?

probably not. but excalibur was giving him a second chance, and that was pretty much the only thing that kept him going. tired or not, he wasn’t going to waste something so rarely given. so he kept driving, even through the brain fog, trying to stop himself from thinking about anything but the road ahead.

he was closer than ever to reseda. and...and to the belt. and, yeah, zack had put him down once before but...maybe he could get lucky again. something like that. he didn’t know...anything, really.

most of all, he didn’t know why he’d build himself up just to let himself fall. think about winning, only to point out all the ways he could lose. 

so he tried to keep his brain empty until his gas tank was just about empty as well, low fuel light clicking on. he wondered how far he could push it, if he could push it until the tank was empty, stranding him on the side of the road. the perfect excuse to miss the show, taking himself out of the question on a technicality.

sure, he’d never find out if he would’ve won, but he also wouldn’t have found out if he was going to lose. a blissful non-answer. chuck wanted to be okay with that, wanted to be okay with not knowing if it meant that he wasn’t a loser.

it would also mean that he’d never find out if he was actually a winner.

chuck pulled off the highway into one of those rest areas, the one with the gas station and the food area. he’d already eaten, but he cleared out the trash from both breakfast and lunch and picked up some snacks after filling his tank. it was hot, the summer sun beating down on him as he stepped out of the air conditioned rest stop.

his phone buzzed in his pocket, he realized that he hadn’t checked his texts all day, ignoring everything in favor of getting stuck in his own head. and he’d missed a lot of texts, some calls too, he hadn’t told excalibur, drew, or orange that he was on the road yet. everyone was concerned too, which made him feel weird. like he’d forgotten something at the motel or something like that.

the bad feeling in his stomach made him check the trunk but he had brought everything, hadn’t forgotten a single thing. everyone was probably mad at him because he forgot to text them, they probably wouldn’t want anything to do with him.

“sorry,” he texted, “got an early start this morning, didn’t want to wake anyone up.”

which wasn’t strictly true but...whatever, it was a good excuse. they were probably mad at him, he needed an excuse.

orange was the first to text back, a thumbs up emoji right away. like...like he was sitting by his phone, waiting for chuck to text or something like that. the thought had him blushing a little, had him snatching his phone up and telling him that he missed him before he could stop himself.

“i miss you too. wish i could be there.” orange responded and chuck wished the same.

but then excalibur texted him that he was happy to get an update, and drew sent a half-bitchy text about noon being early for chuck, even though he got up way earlier than noon while on the road.

and...it was good. it was nice, taking a break, the endless drive starting to get to him. it made him want to hear someone’s voice, but he wasn’t going to bother excalibur or drew again and...as much as he longed to hear orange’s voice, he...he hadn’t earned it. not yet.

he certainly wasn’t going to call ricochet, and gargano was too busy for him. so that left one person.

as his phone rang once, twice, he remembered trent telling him that he hated phone calls. that he usually didn’t answer his phone. he probably wasn’t going to pick up, why would he, when texts were just as good?

“hey, you dead in a ditch somewhere?” trent’s voice, confused through the phone.

well, he picked up.

“no,” chuck said, and then, “how would i be calling if i was dead in a ditch?”

he could hear a ruffle of fabric, probably trent shrugging through the phone even though he couldn’t see it.

“dunno, why else would you call? it’s not 1999, last time i checked.”

maybe calling trent was a mistake. what a weirdo, he made chuck look like a normal guy. but he also made him look like a shittier wrestler, so he had his drawbacks as well.

chuck didn’t really have an answer for that, but trent just kept talking.

“how’s the soul seeking road trip going?”

“it’s not soul seeking,” chuck said, “why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“i dunno. maybe you couldn’t get a flight for a reason, man. maybe it is soul seeking and you just don’t know it, like the universe is trying to tell you something.”

yeah, chuck was really regretting talking to him.

“ _what?_ ” chuck scoffed, trying to frown hard enough that trent could feel it through the receiver.

yet, he couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face, spreading slowly, pushing through the bad thoughts in his brain. as dumb as trent was and, as much as he hated to admit it despite their tag name, he really was one of his best friends. talking to him usually made him feel some sort of happiness, even if he also pissed him off sometimes. it was like his brain could pivot from making him feel bad about himself to roasting trent for whatever stupid thing he had said, and it wasn’t exactly the same as making him feel good about himself but...well, it was enough.

“think about it, man.”

“no.” chuck said, laughing.

“do it,” trent said, “think about it, chuck.”

“no,” chuck responded,petulant, like a child, “knock it off.”

trent didn’t knock it off though, they went back and forth like that for a little while until chuck realized that the fog in his brain was cleared up a little. like talking to trent...it didn’t fully fix him, he was still worried about what would come after tomorrow, but it made him feel just a little more like a person.

“you’re gonna make it, right?” trent asked, after a little while.

“yeah,” chuck responded, “wouldn’t miss it.”

“cool, see you then.”

and then trent was hanging up, clearly having reached his threshold for human conversation. he hadn’t asked where chuck was, he wasn’t too sure of his location himself. somewhere in the tip of texas or just past the border into new mexico. he could look it up but he supposed that it didn’t really matter.

for everything that he went through, the highs and numerous lows, the thought that it wouldn’t matter if he won or lost, he still kept on driving. and, yeah, maybe it was because he had already made it that far, closer to reseda than to philly, but he didn’t think there was anything in the world that would make him miss his second last chance.

maybe he owed it to himself, to...to the people who believed in him. excalibur, who gave him his second chance. drew, who kept in touch even though chuck wouldn’t blame him for disappearing. trent, who cared enough to answer his call, even though he hated talking on the phone. ricochet, because who else was going to challenge him for the belt if he won it?

and...and orange. who was always at his side, no matter what. always there, always the best part of his future.

sure, maybe not knowing would be easier. but he owed it to those people to find out, once and for all, if he was worth the effort of caring about. and there was also the possibility of his friends not letting him disappear. 

they all deserved a definitive answer.

so he kept driving. kept on going until he reached albuquerque and found a place that actually didn’t look too bad for once. the paint wasn’t peeling off of the walls, the staff were friendly enough. it was still a motel but it was a nicer one, the room was neat and the bed was big, sheets clean and soft, cleaner than his own at home probably. like someone actually cared about the place.

and it was a short distance away from some of the best tacos he’d ever had in his life. the owner was friendly too, asked what he was doing in town. friendly enough that, when he mentioned professional wrestling and the guy asked about wwe, he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed about it. he just smiled and said that it sort of was, and the guy accepted that as an answer.

he was wrestling zack the next day, so he only had one margarita with his dinner, bought a six pack of corona on his way back to the motel. he sat, watching tv and texting everyone, nursing one of the beers, under the clean sheets.

it was...good. it was a good night, it would’ve been better if he wasn’t alone. if orange was there with him, god, he was being serious when he said he missed him. everything would’ve been even better if he was there, in the shower with him that morning, sitting next to him in the passenger seat. listening when chuck talked to him, helping him through his shitty moods, singing along to the radio. they would’ve shared the tacos, the six pack of beer, the nice bed...

but, at the same time, maybe trent was right in a way. maybe this was the way he was supposed to do this. fucking soul seeking bullshit.

or maybe his margarita was stronger than he thought it was. yeah, that was probably it.

there was no soul seeking, he was just a guy who forgot to buy a plane ticket and had to face the consequences of his inaction. nothing soul seeking about it, just brain lacking.

still, as he drifted off to sleep, alone in that big bed, he couldn’t help but think that, maybe, there was some truth to what trent had said.

shit. 

maybe he _did_ need to find himself.


	5. 07/07/2017, long before call time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _my fear of freezing keeps me on my feet_  
>  and so far my whole life’s one long lucky streak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you might have noticed that i increased the chapter amount to seven. that's because this chapter would've been double the length of the rest of the fic if i didn't split it up into two. so the next chapter is going to be the match itself and this is the day of.
> 
> the song for this part is "map on a wall" by lucy dacus. it's probably one of the most fitting songs i've picked out actually, i'd highly recommend it.
> 
> enjoy!

the sunlight streamed into the window through the blinds, warm on his face, violent in his eyes, waking him up well before his alarm. chuck mumbled out a few choice words, flipping over onto his other side, burying his face into the pillows to try and get some more sleep.

it wasn’t working though, bright new mexican sun having burned the back of his eyes already, waking him up. sure, there was sun in philadelphia, they made a whole damn show about it, and kentucky was hot in the summer. training with ricochet in the backyard, middle of summer, until his mom forced them to stop. sticky from sweat, drinking lemonade on the porch, talking about how they were both going to be champions in wwe…

right. championships. it was the big day. his big day, or maybe his last big day. groaning, chuck sat up, sticky from sweat and the hot summer sun, shoving his hands against his eyes. he tried to rub the sleep out of them, holding them to his face. 

submitting to the blackness. he wanted to keep sleeping, sleep through his alarm, stay another night. hole himself up here in albuquerque, miss the show. the same thoughts, stretched out in a line over the enter country, of abandoning everything, giving up completely, disappearing.

but it was a nice motel, clean sheets, no water spots dotting the ceiling, no itching all over his body like something was crawling all over him, a clean sort of sweat just from the heat of the sun. not a great place to rot away.

so he didn’t. just turned off the alarm before it went off, an hour early. early for once in his life, the sun still low on the horizon. the shower was as clean as the rest of the room, shining tiles, silver fixtures. chuck tilted his head up into the water, and he just felt...calm. for some reason, he didn’t know why, he thought that he should be freaking out a little more but he just wasn’t. maybe it would come later, but the steam curled around his body, water dripping down, and he felt strangely at ease.

the world was moving around him, and he was moving with it, letting himself be pulled by the currents. he was exactly where he was supposed to be, and things would happen how they may. like everything was predetermined or something, a butterfly effect set into motion a long time ago. like if he had picked a hot dog over a burger at a family cook-out when he was eight, it would’ve tumbled all the dominos to make him win the belt.

he couldn’t help but feel like he picked the burger instead though. like he was going to lose, but it hadn’t really bothered him, standing there under the spray. he had made his peace with losing, and it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. an overwhelming calmness, the sun burned into the back of his eyes, so bright that, if he closed them, he could still see it.

bright like blond hair in the early morning, a halo of messy gold around his head, standing in front of the coffee maker. too early for either one of them, the sun wasn’t even quite out yet but his hair was that bright anyway

“call me when you win.” orange had said, and thinking about it made him laugh a little, into the steamy air.

it felt like weeks ago, felt like yesterday. had he been driving forever or had he even really started yet? he didn’t know, he’d never known anything in his entire life. he probably never would, steaming to-go mug of coffee warming his fingers on that morning like the new mexican sun, like golden blond hair messed up from sleep.

“and when i lose?” he had said, and he didn’t like the face that orange had made after, burned into his brain.

that little half-frown, unreadable. like he knew chuck, knew that there wouldn’t be anything he could say to...what? fix his brain? make him see that he had something close to a chance.

“call me anyway.” he had said.

and there, standing under the spray of the shower, miles and miles and miles away from him, all the time zones between them, he replayed orange’s words in his head and heard them for the first time.

“call me _when_ you win.” orange had said and, days away, chuck really heard him for the first time.

chuck felt the weight of them, the certainty in his voice. his fingers were pruning up from the water. soul seeking. orange believed in him and chuck...well, he probably never would believe in himself. not really, butterfly effect, hamburger over a hot dog, determining his entire life. 

maybe that was all really stupid though. he had changed his mind, at that cook-out, because his older cousin who also wanted to be a wrestler picked a hamburger. and his older cousin wasn’t a wrestler, but he was, and chuck was really losing the plot of his own fucked up analogy.

so that’s how he knew it was all bullshit. weird clarity, he knew that he was trying to...what? explain why he was going to lose so that he could lose and be all smug about it, ahead of the curve. if everyone else was bummed out about it, he could just be like ‘what did you expect’ and it’d be the same as it always was.

clarity was terrifying, he wasn’t calm anymore. and he sorta wanted to go right back into that blind calmness where his analogy made sense. because...what if? what if he won, lived up to everyone’s expectations? orange believed in him, excalibur signed him on for a second chance, trent and drew were on his side, from right next to him and far away. even zack, who he was fighting, believed in him, it was why he had tried so hard to get excalibur to give someone else a chance. people believed in him, why was he so afraid to win, why was he so fucking afraid to believe in himself for once in his life?

hot dog over a hamburger. call me when you win. he was shaking under the water, the calmness long gone. a burning ball of light in the back of his eyes, he could nearly reach out and touch it. he was almost there, it was right there at the tips of his fingers, reseda, the legion hall, a belt, pinning zack, the count of three. burning light, golden blond hair...

he turned the water off, having blown his early start to the day. instead, he was perfectly on time. he wondered if he would’ve thought as much about all of that if he had woken up on time, wondered what he’d be doing if he had bought his ticket, flown in yesterday, already in reseda. 

setting up the ring, maybe. sitting in his motel room, worrying and going over what his plan was with trent. trent saying that he could do it but he wouldn’t believe it, going out there half-assed. planning to lose. 

butterfly effect. hamburger over a hot dog, flying in over taking the long drive. finding himself, fucking...soul seeking road trip.

maybe that was what it was. or maybe that was what it had become, although he didn’t feel like he was looking for his soul, whatever the fuck that meant. it was just...a seeking road trip. souls probably didn’t exist, but he had started off the trip to just get to reseda, a simple goal, not even looking for the belt, and he was on the last day and he was looking for...for something.

maybe he’d already found it. or was close to finding it.

or maybe he wasn’t looking to gain something, maybe he was looking to risk it all and lose everything that he hated about himself. how he was always second guessing himself, always doubting himself. looking to get away from all of those bad parts of himself, re-inventing himself and becoming someone worth believing in.

call me when you win. but he wasn’t going to win if he didn’t get on the road, rotting away in a motel room far too nice for such a thing. so he skipped breakfast, too antsy to eat, grabbed a cup of coffee to make him antsier, and finally got on the road. 

maybe he could come back after winning the belt, retrace his steps. places he never thought he’d come back to. he could see the owner of that taco shop, the waitress from indianapolis, convenience store clerks, gas station attendants, people living their normal lives in places he’d gone through once. show them all the belt, he had only mentioned wrestling to the taco shop guy, but he could show them the belt like, ‘look, you don’t stop existing just because you’re not in front of me and neither do i.’

they’d probably think he was an insane person, so he wasn’t going to do that. y’know...if he even won the damn thing. he tried to remind himself that he still had to get there and fight zack for it, but the thought sorta fell on hollow ears, the endless reminders finally catching up to him. like how a word could lose all meaning if you read it too much, endless repetition.

and, yeah, it was a good reminder. keep his expectations low, but maybe he had kept his expectations low for too long, maybe it was time to bet on himself for once, go all in. like how other people believed in him.

he thought about the good parts of wrestling, the belt in reseda but the crowds as well, the roaring cheers, rocketing streamers over his head. he wondered if they’d throw streamers for him tonight, maybe they would. lots of them. that would be nice, a good part of wrestling. having people behind you, the thrill of hitting that move, of hitting the ropes, taking flight.

he’d asked drew if he missed it, half-finished lunch between his legs in the car somewhere in the middle of america. if he missed the grunge of independent wrestling. streamers, unsterilized, unforced. and he said he wouldn’t, citing the bad, the long road trips, putting your body in pain for peanuts, the climb with no real destination.

he knew that he’d miss it for a fact. and he knew that drew missed it too. no one ever told stories about travelling in a plane and reaching your destination comfortably within a short few hours. and, yeah, that was...comfortable. it was easy. he’d taken many flights to get to matches, won some of them too.

fucking soul seeking road trip. maybe he’d found his soul, somewhere outside of albuquerque. he couldn’t even spell albuquerque, he told excalibur that he’d stopped in ‘albaqwerky’. but maybe that’s where he found...y’know. it. the bright sun burning at the back of his eyes.

golden blond hair, mussed up in front of the coffee maker. maybe that’s where he found it. soulmates were probably bullshit but…

he didn’t know. maybe _he_ brought him some sort of purpose. more than the belt, more than reseda, more than his shitty honda civic that had somehow made it to new mexico without a hitch. he’d missed the fourth of july and he didn’t even care, could only think about getting the belt or fucking it all up, and getting home regardless. because maybe orange didn’t care if he was the pwg champion or not. maybe he would call him anyway, win or lose.

maybe his worth wasn’t tied to the belt. he could lose and...it would be okay. everyone would still talk to him, drew was losing all the time on two-oh-five live, and johnny was getting betrayed by his pervert tag partner-slash-potential lover on fake fcw, trent had just lost the junior tag belts in new japan, and orange...well, he hadn’t really won anything besides a shot at being the..fuck...the… _something_ of one of the worst human beings out there. he was a collection of the messy, messed up parts of everyone he’d ever known, stitched together, barely held by strings of the past.

like some weird, fucked up skin quilt. gross.

he stopped for lunch after that gross sentence, sitting in a fast casual restaurant with a salad in front of him. it was probably too early to stop for lunch but he’d skipped breakfast, so it was all his fault. that early start, down the drain, he spent too much time in the shower and he hadn’t even...done anything. just thought about stuff, not like the other morning where at least he had gotten off. 

but that hadn’t felt as good as it should’ve, and standing there in the shower for too long felt...good. thinking about the people in his life, the people that believed in him. he looked down into his salad, mealy looking tomato, sad on top of the lettuce. people believed in him.

it felt so...big. it had felt good, earlier, thinking about everyone in his life that thought he mattered, that thought he was important. it was overwhelming and...and scary. he was terrified of letting everyone down, looking down at the salad in front of him. at his hands, clenched around the edge of the table. his blurry hands, shaking as he lifted them, it was...

too much. fuck, it was too much. he was _crying_. in a fast casual restaurant, somewhere in arizona. he had promised himself that he wasn’t going to do that. no one should cry in a fast casual restaurant in arizona, not even someone without any dignity like chuck taylor should cry in a fast casual restaurant in arizona.

at least it wasn’t ohio.

he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, the light at the back of his eyes starting to dim a little. he felt like he was eight years old again, everything was so big and he was so small, insignificant. he told everyone that he wanted to be a wrestler and they just...humored him. okay, chuckie, you can be a wrestler. you can call me when you win.

fucking pathetic. he wiped his eyes again, took his salad back to his car to cry in peace. people were starting to stare at the grown man crying in a fast casual restaurant in arizona. he didn’t want people to be looking at him, there was already going to be people looking at him later that night, maybe they pitied him too.

or maybe he wasn’t that important. maybe they wouldn’t even show up to pity him, maybe they would show up just to see him lose. no one chanting his name, no streamers, not important enough to pity. like he’d already lost the fight to make people care about him. like he’d never be enough.

chuck wiped his eyes again, dropping his fork. sniffling a little. pathetic. he felt raw, needy, like he wanted to call someone but he didn’t want them to know he was crying. he wanted to hear orange’s voice most of all. wanted him to tell him that it was going to be...okay, even. he didn’t need to be good, just...okay. he knew that he should just call him, that he didn’t need to deserve to do it. he didn’t need to earn a conversation with orange, orange would always be happy to hear from him.

his finger hovered over the button. why did he feel like that, that he needed to...to earn the right to talk to orange, his…

he didn’t know. chuck hadn’t earned it. he didn’t want anyone to hear him crying anyway, sniffling miserably. instead, he sighed softly, switching to his texts instead. he texted excalibur before he could stop himself, telling him that, if he lost, he wasn’t ever going to challenge for the belt again.

excalibur was texting him back immediately and chuck frowned.

“are you sure?” he asked.

and of course he wasn’t sure. it was a crazy, stupid thing to wager. especially when there were still tears on his face, in his eyes. getting in his own way again.

“yeah, i’m sure.”

he wasn’t. he didn’t want to do it like that but he just felt like he had to do something. he felt too small and too big at the same time...panicked. raw, angry, sad. like he had learned everything and nothing about himself. far away from his shower that morning where everything had made sense. 

he felt the weight of everything. he needed to win and needed it to mean something. needed it to make sense. he hated wrestling sometimes, hated that he was broken in that way. he tried to retire once already and it hadn’t stuck because he _needed_ wrestling.

maybe they all did. excalibur, long retired from the ring, but he was there still, pwg. and trent, who had been signed and gotten released, finding himself on the indie scene. johnny and drew, they were at wwe, they had made it by all meanings of the word, made it in wrestling. ricochet was probably next too, head raised, looking to the future. and orange with head down for so long, finally starting to make a name for himself, at chuck’s side. maybe they all needed wrestling.

and chuck couldn’t help but think that none of them got to be normal people. that they were always going to be a little fucked up. a mealy tomato on a pile of wilted lettuce.

“zack liked that a little too much, man.” excalibur texted and he had to laugh.

he wondered if he would’ve called zack if it had been a different road trip, just for a second. they used to be friends. he started to see him as an enemy. he didn’t hate zack but it felt like zack might hate him.

at least he wasn’t crying anymore.

his phone buzzed just as he finished up his salad. zack hadn’t texted him in months, since before that february show. they had both promised not to take it too seriously, not to let the match ruin their friendship.

so much for that.

“you’re going to regret that, mate.” he said and chuck didn’t respond.

he didn’t know how. they used to be friends. whatever. he had a drive to make. fuck, he should’ve left earlier, shouldn’t have spent so much time in the shower. hamburger over a hot dog, whatever that meant. he should’ve driven for longer over the past few days, should’ve gotten a flight instead, it was too far, too much. 

he wished orange was there with him. that would’ve made the drive a little easier, he wouldn’t have driven but he could’ve listened when chuck talked, chuck could’ve pulled him in close at night, held him. maybe he wouldn’t have cried if orange was there or...orange could’ve brushed his tears away. soft blond hair, standing in front of the coffee maker, call me when you win.

he wanted to hear someone else’s voice if he was being honest. that was why he was calling people in the first place, talking on the phone. like it was 1999 or something. itching to talk to someone who...who understood. he thought about calling orange but...yeah, he still hadn’t earned it. knew that, if he heard orange’s voice, he might just turn around to be with him, some other legion hall or sports center, the other side of the country. so far away from him, too far, missing him like nothing else.

so he couldn’t call orange. he certainly wasn’t going to call zack, he might’ve called him, some other road trip. it wasn’t about zack though, not really, he hadn’t thought about him that much at all on the drive over. it wasn’t about drew either, and excalibur was definitely too busy to talk, and trent...it wasn’t 1999 anymore.

so, who could he call? who else did he know?

a dial tone, his fingers picking a name before his brain could come to the conclusion. he didn’t want to talk to ricochet, not really, but he was calling him and he was probably going to have to talk to him. he and zack used to be friends, were he and ricochet ever really friends at all?

hot kentucky summers, sweat, lemonade. talking about the future. ricochet, bright as always. driving to illinois because they were too young to wrestle in kentucky. the phone kept ringing, his hands were starting to sweat a little.

kentucky in july. reseda in july, the legion hall, the hottest building on the planet. hot crowd, hotter air. sticky sweat soaking through his shirt, palms sweating enough that he almost lost his grip on his phone.

he didn’t want to talk to ricochet. a robotic voice, ‘your call has been forwarded to an automated…’

no answer. he wondered what they would’ve talked about. ricochet probably wouldn’t have called it a soul seeking road trip. it probably would’ve made him feel worse. ricochet had been there since the beginning, he didn’t want to be seen like that. 

he was as behind as it was. didn’t need it to be that obvious. ricochet was so bright, blinding. a light at the back of his eyes, the kentucky sun, 

he’d always love and hate ricochet. he was glad that he didn’t answer though, knew that ricochet would always be nipping at his heels. and hearing that, if he won, if he won it all, the belt, raised high above his head, that someone else would be there to try and take it from him. he’d been trying for nine years, nine fucking years, did ricochet deserve the chance either? did anyone deserve anything? maybe...maybe he earned it because there was no deserving anything?

he hadn’t lost a match since 2014, a long history stretching out. nine years of the best, of the worst, of everything, blurry, messy, awful, incredible, everything. maybe no one deserved anything, maybe everything had to be earned. he didn’t know. maybe he didn’t deserve shit, maybe he didn’t deserve anything at all. maybe excalibur just liked him and that was the only reason he was getting any of this. excalibur, favoring him. so maybe he hadn’t earned it either, except...it felt like he had earned it in a way. hadn’t lost a match to anyone besides zack since 2014, so maybe he had earned it. or maybe he should’ve done it earlier.

maybe there was a lot of things he should’ve done earlier. maybe he should’ve told zack that it wasn’t personal earlier, maybe he should’ve told orange that it _was_ personal earlier, that he…

so ricochet didn’t pick up. whatever. he had to get going anyway, pulling his directions back up and tossing his phone into the cupholder, starting the car. his honda civic, it had brought him that far, it wasn’t going to fail him now, pulling out, getting back onto the highway.

if he was being honest, he wasn’t even sure he was going to make it, and wouldn’t that be perfect? deciding to go, deciding that he had earned the title shot, coming to a lot of realizations about himself, everything and nothing, only to miss it all because he ended up los angeles traffic.

maybe that was the only thing he deserved in life. the endless drive, missing out because other people couldn’t get their shit together. and it wouldn’t be his fault, or so people would say, but it would be his fault. he could’ve left earlier, could’ve done more driving over the past couple of days, done the trip in three days. he could’ve gotten there a day early, could’ve flown in if he had just thought ahead. instead, he was fighting against the clock, starting to really stress over it.

why were the last twelve hours of the trip the longest of them all? it all felt endless, but the drive from albuquerque to reseda felt eternal, those endless miles. he still had so far to go and he hadn’t even gotten into la traffic yet, knew that he’d hit it eventually. what would he have talked to ricochet about anyway, ‘hey, remember when we used to be friends?’

‘remember when everything was so much easier, when everything made sense? that was crazy. remember sitting on my parents’ porch, drinking lemonade, remember when i showed you how to do that one move and you were already better at it than i was on your first attempt?’

he wasn’t friends with zack anymore, they used to be friends. he remembered some show, somewhere in the middle of the country, twenty years old. he didn’t know any of those guys, ricochet didn’t either, and they had all started making fun of him. of his name, his gear, and ricochet had…

he had joined in. laughing at him, trying to fit in. chuck had still driven him home, hadn’t said anything about it. ricochet had laughed at him too and chuck let him do it. he probably didn’t even remember it, but chuck did, he did, he _did_.

he couldn’t forget it. it was ten years ago, they used to be friends, they would always be friends, they were never friends. ricochet would leave him like drew had, like johnny had, like trent probably would, and maybe it was okay. maybe he should, maybe he should’ve left him at that show. 

ricochet was there, at the show in reseda. had flown in for it, he was booked too. he was always there, always where chuck was. following him, he hadn’t left him at that show. he’d told ricochet’s mom that he’d bring him home safe, that he’d always...that he’d always keep him safe. so he brought him home and hadn’t said anything, brought him to the next show too. and the next one, and then to the ones in philadelphia, ricochet was there when he met orange. laughing at him, laughing at him again when he didn’t know what to say to the pretty blond guy, saying nothing and everything to try and prolong their conversation because he didn’t want to let him go in case he never got to speak to him again.

all of his memories, growing up into the mess of a man that excalibur had decided to give two title shots to, ricochet was always there in the background. looming, waiting for his own chance. he was probably going to get signed, everyone was getting signed. he probably was going to get his chance. he’d promised his mom that he’d keep him safe, he was going to go where chuck never could and he was probably going to take his title with him-- _shit_.

his title. he hadn’t won it. call me when you win. it wasn’t his title, not yet, maybe it never would be.

ricochet wasn’t that kid anymore. he wasn’t either. 

but it still felt like ricochet was laughing at him.

chuck was glad that he didn’t pick up. he probably wondered why chuck was even calling him in the first place. he didn’t have a reason. he promised his mom that he’d keep him safe, was that enough of a reason to call him? probably not. he didn’t know, he just...wanted to hear someone’s voice. he probably would’ve laughed at him for that too.

he turned the radio up after that, trying to think of nothing at all, at least for a little while. it didn’t feel like he was getting close to reseda, it felt like reseda was approaching him instead. hunting him down, the legion hall, hot in july. hot crowd, hotter building, and he was afraid of failing but he didn’t have a choice.

he was eight years old, hamburger over a hot dog, he was twenty, ricochet laughing at him just to fit in, maybe he wasn’t doing it just to fit in, maybe he agreed with all of those guys in the back. maybe he was laughing at chuck just to laugh at him, maybe he was still laughing at chuck. a bright light in the back of his eyes. he was thirty-one, and he was afraid like he always was, but he didn’t have a choice. reseda was hunting him down, and he was going to meet it head on, sink or swim. maybe he could overshoot, run right past reseda, right into the pacific ocean. sink or swim, floating there for awhile, letting the waves take him.

but he’d already decided not to disappear. so he’d stop at reseda.

the sun was starting to set, sinking lower on the horizon. he was closer but not close enough. the deserts were a strange sight to see, he’d never driven through them. knew that he’d have to do it again, going back, potentially empty handed. twenty dollars and a hot dog, ricochet in the seat next to him, orange at his side with a bunch of guys in the back seat. the miles on his car being the only thing he had to show for any of it. orange smiling over at him, turning up a song that only the two of them liked, it hadn’t felt like nothing. something to show for all of his time and effort.

if he even got there at all. eventually, he did hit la traffic, a standstill. sitting there, drumming on the wheel, watching the time tick away. the show had already started but he was on last, he just had to make it there. just had to get there before it was time to go out, before his music hit. there were people there who were probably there to see him, people who showed up to the legion hall every time he was there.

it was hard sometimes. hard to see past his own two feet, hard to look back and remind himself that people cared about him. it felt like he had to keep reminding himself, had to keep coming to that conclusion because it was so easy to convince himself otherwise. people thought he was good when he was some dumb kid, scaring children at chikara, telling jokes to feel better about himself. like, if he couldn’t be good, at least he could be funny. teaching ricochet moves in his backyard that he picked up in moments.

it was just really hard to get his head out of his own ass if he was being honest. people believed in him...maybe they believed in him because he was worth believing in. he was cutting it real close and he knew it, la traffic moving so slow while his brain was moving so fast, racing.

he thought of that moment again, the one he invented in his head. being the one to raise the belt at the end of the match, going through hell and back to finally win at something. the perfect moment, zack hoisted up into the air, slamming down into the mat, the reseda faithful screaming, screaming along with the chant, covering zack.

one.

two...

and he knew that he couldn’t let himself get hopeful but the thought was still nice. being the one to win it all in the end. something he hadn’t earned or deserved, rather something he had fought for. tooth and fucking nail, zack wasn’t going to let him wander out of the legion hall with that belt and he knew it.

still, he thought about it, fighting through the traffic. the belt on his shoulder, gold and pale green. holding his phone up to his ear, call me when you win, orange’s voice warm through the line as he told him about the belt, as he told him about _everything_. 

_three._

maybe that was what he was looking forward to. more than that pop of the crowd, more than putting zack down, proving himself, more than the belt. orange’s voice warm through the line as he told him...well, told him how he really felt about him. he hadn’t earned it, not yet. setting up his own road blocks, he could pull over into the breakdown lane and call him, tell him right there, in los angeles traffic. and orange wasn’t going to tell him that he needed to win the belt before he could tell him, he’d be happy about it probably.

it was weird, the more he thought about it. he was so unsure about most things, winning the belt especially, but...he was sure that orange felt the same way. maybe he should be more unsure about it, he didn’t know. it just felt...right. orange, waking up early for him, standing in front of the coffee maker, golden blond hair rumpled from sleep, too tired to push it back like he usually would. little moments.

driving back to him, empty handed or not, it’d all be worth it in the end. gathering him up into his arms in the doorway, heads tilting together…

golden blond hair in the sun. golden plates in the overhead lights. traffic was starting to move, he was going to make it on time. he found a place to park, could hear the cheers from outside the building. he’d made it, he was there, feet on the ground in reseda. grabbing his gear bag from the car, running, struggling out of his clothes before he was even anywhere private, running past people. pushin forward back.

he practically threw his gear bag at trent, ready to go. maybe he wasn’t ready, maybe he’d never be ready, but...he was there, mostly in one piece. reseda was rushing at him, head first, and he met it, head on slightly backwards. and trent really was a sight for sore eyes, smiling at him, punching his arm a little jovial. he should probably ask him about his match, but trent never really let those things get to him anyway.

he let trent pull him into a hug, just a quick one. his best friend, hands patting his back. he sort of wanted to sink into the human contact, let his friend hold him up, but he didn’t have the time to break, so he pulled back, looking into dark brown eyes and a friendly smile. holding it together.

“you ready?” trent asked.

“not really.” he said, and trent laughed like he was joking.

a bright light at the back of his eyes. he wasn’t joking. he could never be ready for something like this. four days of driving wasn’t enough to get him ready, a lifetime of wrestling wasn’t enough either. he had all the time in the world to prepare but it was just the way things were going to be, he wasn’t ready. he wished he’d bent down and kissed orange when he had the chance, like he should’ve, he wasn’t ready for any of it.

but his music hit just then and it was time. no more time to second guess himself, no more time to prepare, his music was playing because it was time to go.

so he went.


	6. 07/07/2017, long after call time.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _but if we learn how to live like this_  
>  baby, we can learn how to start again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, shit. here we go. i took five pages of notes on this match and it still didn't feel like enough. i've never actually written a wrestling match, but i sure did it here so please enjoy. i hope i managed to do it some justice as it's my favorite match of all times.
> 
> song for this chapter is "drunk drivers/killer whales" by car seat headrest. it's one of my favorite songs, i happened to pull this line from the single version but both versions are excellent.
> 
> next chapter is the epilogue. can't believe this is almost over.
> 
> please, enjoy.

the turnbuckle dug awkwardly into his ass, the voices raised high for zack..for him. they were cheering for him too, he knew that, but he could only hear one voice through the roar, some drunk guy desperately trying to get a chant of ‘chuckie failure’ going. it was funny, it probably shouldn’t have been funny to him, but it was funny. he’d never heard that one before. fuck gaylor, he’d heard that one, but chuckie failure was new. innovative. he liked it, it felt right.

he almost missed his name getting announced, standing up at the last second and raising his arm up high. murray, kentucky. the kentucky gentleman, chuck taylor. he had almost gotten off the highway and driven back there, almost gave up. where would he even sleep, his mom’s couch? he was a grown ass man, he couldn’t quit to go crash on his mom’s couch.

the streamers flew high above his head. he was glad that he made it, glad that he was standing there in the legion hall. yellow and orange mainly, perfect arcs over the ring. orange always was his favorite color. zack got a couple of streamers too, snatching one out of the air and throwing it at him. it bounced off of his shoulder, and he looked over at zack.

standing there with the belt he wanted. they were friends once, some time ago, they’d go for beers and food and zack didn’t judge him too much for not being a vegan, as long as they’d go some place that had something for him to eat too. he liked zack and a part of him still did but...well...they weren’t really friends anymore. 

not after what happened in february, not after he’d made it his mission to make sure that chuck would never be able to challenge for the belt again. they were friends but now zack was the only thing standing in his way, clutching the belt like he was worried it was going to be his last time ever holding it. 

knox took the belt from him, brought it over to chuck. he stared down into the gold plate, stared down into his reflection in the shining surface. pale green strap, pale green eyes. his own eyes. chuck reached out and touched it, the surface cooler than the air surrounding them. he wondered if he’d get to touch it again.

it was taken away from him after that, set to the side. no more time to overthink it, no more miles to drive, no more thinking of it as something that hadn’t happened yet. the bell rang and it was time. he was there and it was time.

maybe he’d get lucky one last time.

they locked up, collar and elbow tie-up, chuck forced back into his corner, zack stayed on top of him, arm in his face. a threat, a show of disrespect. he was wearing different trunks, blue over his usual red or white. it was a strange look on him. he released him after knox started counting, they tied back up again. it was zack who went into the corner that time, and chuck thought that he should let him go but he just...didn’t.

he didn’t know why. he didn’t respect zack either, maybe he did at some point. they were...they were friends. he didn’t know, he just couldn’t respect him. he was in his way, and he wanted...needed to win. there were people rooting for him, harder than he was rooting for himself, and he just couldn’t prove himself right.

zack pushed him back a little, he pushed right back in, foreheads shoved together. staring into brown eyes, they were friends once. his eyes were clear and bright with his anger, chuck felt stuffed up and messy with his own feelings, anger, yeah, but there was something else there too. he was a fucking mess and he knew it, knew that everyone could see it. cracked open there, staring into zack’s eyes, zack knew it too.

maybe that was why he didn’t think he was worthy of the belt, why he’d fought so fucking hard to keep it for himself. maybe it wasn’t just that he wanted to keep the belt, maybe it was because he didn’t want chuck to have it.

it just felt...personal. it wasn’t supposed to feel personal, he’d barely thought about zack at all on the drive over. it hadn’t mattered until it mattered, until chuck was staring into his eyes. he couldn’t look at him anymore, bright light in the back of his eyes, golden plates. he had to pull away, getting zack into a headlock, trying to bring him down.

it didn’t work, not really. zack slapped him in the face, he slapped him in return. the crowd heckled zack, and he pulled back to respond. always distracted. chuck thought that maybe he should capitalize on it, get him down, go for the pin. instead, he just watched as zack draped himself over the ropes, slapping his ass with both hands in the direction of the woman who yelled that he was boring.

it _was_ funny. they were friends once.

it went like that for a little while, little slaps, the crowd heckling zack and cheering for him. he still wasn’t used to the cheers, wasn’t used to being someone worth cheering for. he still didn’t think he was worthy of it, the cheers, the belt. maybe zack was right about all of it, he didn’t know.

maybe he shouldn’t even try. chuckie failure.

still, he used his legs to get out of zack’s leg lock. still, he tried. he didn’t know why he was trying, but he was and it felt right. not everyone got a second chance, he shouldn’t waste his opportunity and he knew it. he wasn’t going to get another one if he lost, texted excalibur about it and everything, hoping that his own desperation would be enough.

maybe he was just setting up his own roadblocks. getting in his own way. he didn’t know, it just felt like the right thing to do. he had hardly deserved his first chance, never mind the second, and he sure as hell wouldn’t deserve a third chance.

two hip tosses for zack. he saw the opportunity, he took it, tossing him around. getting his shoulder locked in then, joining him down on the mat. he tried to hold firm but zack turned, looping his leg around the bottom rope. chuck broke but zack held on firm, even as knox tried to get him off, switching his hold and wrenching his ankle.

it hurt like fucking hell, burning pain searing through him. was it even worth it? all of the pain and he was probably going to lose anyway. knox forced him to break the hold but his ankle was sore already, trying to kick his leg to work his tendons through it. zack broke too, standing and kicking him in the face a little, just more disrespect.

he thought about all of the times they went for beers together, sitting in a bar somewhere close to the legion hall. they were friends, he watched as zack responded to another person heckling him, they could still be friends maybe.

probably not. he didn’t know. he didn’t hate fire ant like he used to, maybe the anger he felt for zack could go away. he’d never been friends with fire ant after all, and he didn’t hate him anymore. maybe the belt just made everything bad, maybe he shouldn’t even want the damn thing.

golden plates. golden hair. he _wanted_.

zack, always the opportunist, kept right on his ankle. he saw the weakness there and he went for it. maybe every part of him was weak though. maybe he’d gotten soft. he made it to the bottom rope again, zack was getting frustrated and he knew it. knew that zack wasn’t used to his opponents being able to reach the ropes when he had them tangled up like that. slapping the mat, hurling abuse at knox.

he pulled himself up to his feet, tried to lock up. zack wouldn’t though, he wasn’t going to lock up with him again. learning from his mistakes, chuck had both size and height on him, something he wasn’t used to but something he was going to adapt to correct. he wished that zack was dumb, wished that he’d make mistakes. he needed to get lucky to beat him and he knew it, and that door was closing rapidly so…

he just...started hitting him. striking and chopping his chest. he got some in return of course, sweat flying off of him. they were both sweating of course, wrestling took a lot out of a guy, but it was also reseda in july. he’d made it to reseda, that long endless drive ending.

maybe that was a part of his desperation. he’d driven across the whole fucking country, thousands of miles of highway, cornfields and deserts, the flattest earth he’d even seen in his life, tacos and fast food and salads, crying in a fast casual joint, overcome with emotions. his life, the endless fucking highway.

he needed to win. or die fucking trying.

zack seemed to know as much, things really kicked off after that. he got zack, zack got him. an exchange of power, no one really in control until chuck lost it, laying on his back as zack got both ankles around his neck and twisted. like he was trying to fucking break his neck, dying in the middle of the ring, no insurance.

he didn’t die though, zack landing on his back and lounging on him, rubbing into his sore neck with his elbows roughly. looking to really hurt him. he was working on all of his parts, like he sensed that the weakness in him was...was all of him. or maybe like he was desperate himself, trying to get something to stick. 

like he wanted to make sure chuck could never challenge again, make sure that he’d never _try_ again. learning his place. they were friends once, he wondered if zack would have answered if he had called him while he was on the road. maybe in another life, on another road trip to somewhere else. if he was fighting someone else for the belt, zack’s voice through the line, encouraging him or teasing him or just talking him through it. 

call me when you win, his brain supplied, softer and higher than his own voice. there was a reason for all of this. he wondered what orange was doing, he was at a show, a chikara show. chuck would’ve been there too if not for this, it was probably less important than the belt but it felt like it could be as important, laughing with orange in the back, taking him out to get food, bringing him back to whatever motel they were at…

he was getting distracted. zack was trying to push him out of the ring, little kicks, and he held on firm at the last second, watching as knox finally got him off of him. zack bounced around in the ropes a little, fucking around, like he really didn’t think chuck had what it takes. like he thought that he’d blown his best shot already and that excalibur had just given him the pity rematch because he liked him.

maybe that was true. but...but he hadn’t lost a match besides that title match in two fucking years. that...that couldn’t just be luck. he was on the run of a lifetime and it couldn’t just be luck. he was...good. he was good, and he deserved this match. he deserved the shots he had been given, the shots he earned.

and he didn’t hate zack. not really. but he stood before him, taking shots, growing...growing a little arrogant. putting his hands behind his back, grinning at him, goading him on. and, yeah, he got knocked down for his troubles, but he got right back up, got his hands behind his back again, and told him to try again. and then again.

“is that all you got?” he yelled, hoarse, up on his knees.

and he didn’t really know why. it sounded stupid, even to his own arrogant brain. because...what was he trying to prove? why was he trying to prove himself like this anyway, all he got was a rattled brain and more pain in his body. to prove...what? that he was tough enough? he knew he was tough enough, so why was he trying to prove it to zack. zack wasn’t ever going to buy it anyway, and the crowd was already behind him. he hadn’t lost a match at pwg in two years, what was he trying to prove? maybe that should’ve been enough.

it wasn’t enough. he...he needed the belt. needed it to prove...something. he didn’t know, he just needed it.

he went down. got back up again, spitting in zack’s face, watching him wipe it off. yeah, that was a little gross. it felt a little too far even as he did it, but the rage made zack ugly and sloppy. he needed zack to be sloppy, needed to be able to take advantage of him in that way, but it didn’t really work.

he fell again, head on the bottom turnbuckle, digging in awkwardly. getting up was getting harder and harder. maybe he should stop goading zack on like that, he wanted to win. he wanted to win, for everyone who believed in him...for himself. he wanted to win for himself and he wasn’t going to do it by getting his shit rocked in by zack on his own damn request.

knox asked if he was done. he wasn’t, but he pictured giving up for a moment. it wasn’t a satisfying thought, giving up like that. he was tired, he was more awake than ever, the picture of a contradiction. the need to win and lose swirling around in his body like the pain and exhilaration. he was tired and more awake than ever, and he shook knox off to get back up and get back in there.

he wasn’t going to give up. not like that. zack might very well have to kill him.

chuck got back up, a monumental task, chopping zack so hard that he staggered back from the force of his own blow, sweat flying everywhere. reseda in july.

he was desperate. he knew that he shouldn’t need to prove himself, that people believed in him, belt or no belt. but he just...he needed to prove them right. needed to prove those bad parts of his brain wrong. chuck needed to be someone worth believing in, worthy of the belt, worthy of…

worthy of being loved. worthy of loving someone else too.

he fell, hands and knees, and zack kicked him down flat, lording over him. he flipped onto his back, staring up at him with unfocused eyes. fuck, he was tired. driving twelve hours and then wrestling a match was definitely not his best idea. he should’ve bought the ticket ahead of time...but, at the same time, he knew that he needed this. the drive, the hours in his own head, trying to figure out why he kept doing this to himself.

“c’mon chuck.” zack goaded, sneering down at him.

and the crowd was chanting his name, so he did come, staggering back up to his feet. he’d always get up.

he chopped zack once. and then again. and then went for the third one but zack wasn’t going to let him do it again, wasn’t going to let him get the three. he kicked his hand away, tried to lock on, and chuck saw his chance. he had to do it, hauling zack up, hitting him with the falcon arrow, doing the deal.

nobody kicked out of the falcon arrow after all, but zack rolled away, out to the apron, not giving him a chance to make the pin. chuck dragged him back in the hard way, tossing him onto the mat hard. he hit like a sack of bricks, and chuck was on him, stomping on his face. he had to stay on him, couldn’t give him a chance to get any momentum.

“get up!” he heard himself screaming, somewhere outside of his body.

the crowd seemed to like that, rallied behind him. chanting his name, they believed in him. he needed to do it for them too, they probably bought their tickets to see this damn match, to see him raise that belt over his head.

so, yeah. he was going to go through hell and back. it didn’t really feel like him to do it for the crowd if he was being honest, he used to do what he did to actively ruin their enjoyment of the shows. he hated them, he made kids cry on purpose, got a kick out of it back in the day.

he’d probably just feel bad if he made a kid cry now. maybe he was getting soft. couldn’t stay in a shitty motel without his skin crawling, couldn’t make a kid cry, he wasn’t tough anymore. soft and dumb, and zack knew it.

zack was goading him in. and maybe he was dumb, fully buying into it, tangling him up in the ropes. breaking the rules, he used to do that, back in the day. knox counted again, getting to four. zack stood after that and chuck...well, maybe he wanted to break some rules for old time’s sake.

he stepped up, kicking him, enziguri, knocking him onto the floor, following him out. and then the fans started handing him chairs, they knew him well. fucking deathmatch legend, chuck taylor, laying the chairs down. that’d put zack down, he could haul him back into the ring after, get the pin, the belt. nice and easy.

none of it was easy of course, nothing ever worked out just like that. but zack was leaning hard against the apron, trying to regain his strength, not interrupting him while he built one of his chair structures. waiting, watching, trying to figure out how he was going to get out of going through it. he had to go over and chop him after that, just to keep him down, and then he was right back to it, building up the stack of chairs.

it was high risk and he knew it, he’d gone into one of his own chair structures enough to know that it could make or break a match. high risk, high reward, and there was something about the act of building it. building his own demise sometimes, hopefully building zack’s demise there in the reseda legion hall.

it was finished. july-warmed metal, hot in a way that only the legion hall could be, mean. menacing. how he used to be, back when he was younger and less...well, he wasn’t nice but. less mean. he turned, looking to find zack, he was back in the ring, staring him down. trying to bait him in, brown eyes. they were friends once.

he was going to toss him into some chairs. dark steel, dark bars after shows, long conversations. chuck had told zack about...about orange one day, how he felt about him. he’d probably told him before he told trent, someone a little further removed, not his best friend but...friends. zack told him to go for it, he hadn’t gone for it.

maybe he should’ve gone for that back then, maybe he should’ve gone for it a long time ago. zack was going for it, trying to knock him into his own chairs. he held on firm, tried to haul zack up and over the ropes, superplex him into the chairs. he almost got it, zack over his head, but he couldn’t quite get him all the way over. zack beared down with all of his weight, bringing him back down onto his feet. and then he was running, hitting the ropes, off of his feet again.

desperation. he wasn’t going to be the one to go into the chairs. he could see it in his brown eyes, for just a second, ugly, hot. reseda in july. and then he was falling, and falling, and falling, time moving in slow motion, looking up into zack’s smug face until he was looking up at the ceiling.

the pain was immediate, sharp over his entire back. every muscle in his body, on fire, the pain obvious and horrible. why did he do this, why did he do this to himself? he regretted every chair he unfolded, passed to him by the people watching, eager to see him put zack into them. some were probably eager to watch anyone go into a stack of chairs, uncaring as long as they get to see someone go through them. happy regardless.

he certainly wasn’t happy that it was him who went through the chairs. he regretted everything in his life that lead up to that moment, he had a degree, if he used that, he wouldn’t be going through a stack of chairs. he’d be...somewhere. somewhere else, not on his back in the legion hall. a part of him would always hate wrestling in some way, it was always the worst and best thing he could ever do. drew, saying that he didn’t miss it, chuck would fucking miss every part of it.

so, yeah. it hurt. but the people crowded around him were fanning him with their hats, someone had an actual paper fan, they came prepared. reseda in july, a paper fan, cool breeze. it calmed his mind, calmed some of the pain. his own hubris sent him into the chairs but...but he could keep going, even as zack paraded around inside the ring.

this wouldn’t be it for him. he could do it, he could...he could still win. he could still lose too, but that was always there. he had to hold onto it, hold onto the thought that he could win because...yeah, it really was feeling like it was slipping away from him.

the structure collapsed under his weight, sending him crashing to the floor. every muscle in his body hurt, maybe that was the final nail on his coffin. every part of him, torn apart, gone through his own chair structure. zack’s desperation won out in the end, he’d be counted out and at least zack wouldn’t have put him down like he did last time. he’d learned something at least.

right. knox was counting. twenty count in reseda. like chikara and new japan. a part of him wanted to stay down but he was pretty sure that he landed in someone’s beer, wet and hot under his back, warmed in the stifling air of the legion hall. he probably owed the guy a new beer and a new chair, he was probably one of the guys fanning him with their hats.

he didn’t know. zack was taunting him, taunting his stupidity, and knox was counting, got to ten and he was moving, fighting to stand up. fuck, he was tired. he didn’t know why he was fighting, getting counted out would be...fine. losing but only technically. less embarrassing then getting pinned or choked out by zack’s triangle sleeper again. but he was up.

his last shot wasn’t going to end because of his own stupid actions. his last chance, lost because of his own chair structure, his own fault. knox got to fourteen before chuck managed to roll himself back into the ring. he could barely stand, exhaustion and agony warring for the title of the biggest pain in his ass.

he shouldn’t have driven twelve hours before wrestling against zack. he shouldn’t have built a big chair structure, shouldn’t have left himself go through it. should’ve bought a plane ticket, should’ve bent his head down and kissed orange when he had the chance…

there were a lot of things chuck should’ve done. he pawed at zack, uselessly, and zack batted him away easily. he was damaged, there was no way he was going to win now. he should’ve told excalibur as much when he was offered the match, so much he should’ve done. he didn’t know, he had been unsure when excalibur had offered him the match.

he didn’t want to lose to zack again. and it was looking like he was going to.

zack stomped on him, every muscle in his body singing with pain. clear, obvious pain, not like the war in his brain. he was hurting, had been hurting for years. nothing but pain to show after a long career. maybe it should’ve ended in 2015.

“just let me ring the bell, man.” knox pleaded, down by his head.

right, chuck was down. but...he couldn’t give up. that would be worse that losing to the fucking triangle sleeper, bitching out, letting knox ring the bell.

“no, no, no…” he chanted, hardly mouthing the word, over and over again.

not like that. zack might have to kill him but...not like that. he couldn’t give up, couldn’t let knox ring that bell unless he couldn’t kick out or until he passed out. he hadn’t tapped to that triangle sleeper after all, he’d never given up when it came to zack.

so, no, knox. he wasn’t going to give up. zack would have to kill him or knock him out or pin him, but he wasn’t going to give up. maybe chuck had learned a thing or two in his time as a wrestler, maybe he had grown in some ways. or maybe he was just desperate. either way, he wasn’t going to give up.

knox didn’t ring the bell. zack was instantly on him, going for his ankle. like he had gone for his knee, his shoulder, his neck. zack wasn’t just trying to retain, he was trying to break him. like he was trying to make sure he wasn’t physically able to go for the belt, nevermind his word to never challenge for it again. they used to be friends.

maybe he should’ve said it to him more. maybe it wouldn’t have been personal if he’d told zack that he was important to him in more obvious words, maybe he needed to say things out loud a lot more and not leave it up to someone’s best assumptions. he’d told zack how he felt about orange, why hadn’t he told him that he mattered to him as well.

why had he waited so long to tell orange that he…

he made it to the bottom rope and zack held on firm. knox had to pull him off of him, he could feel zack’s anger, hot like the legion hall, the air around them both. he couldn’t even win like that, keeping his hold while chuck hugged the bottom rope so tight, it wasn’t even really about winning anymore. zack could get disqualified and it wouldn’t even matter, it was like he wasn’t even trying to win fairly anymore.

chuck wasn’t going to let knox ring the bell like that. zack would have to pin him or knock him out. he’d have to kill him. they used to be friends. they used to be friends and zack was trying to break him down into nothing, the softest parts of himself on display. fuck, he was tired. knox had to pull zack off of him, pushing him back, letting the match continue.

he was so tired in that bone deep sort of way. sore all over, old pain and new. he’d been doing this for far too long. every bump he took was starting to collect, chuck wasn’t _old_ but he felt...well...old. his body was one big bruise, maybe he should’ve retired. but, well, he knew that it wouldn’t have lasted. he needed wrestling, everyone in that building did. drew and johnny, in wwe, orange, thousands of miles away in some sports center on the east coast, they all needed wrestling.

more than wrestling though, more than the belt, they all needed each other. as fucking cheesy as it was to think, the best part about wrestling wasn’t even the matches and it sure as hell wasn’t the shit money, hot dog and a handshake, or the bumps or the awful motels. wrestling in front of twenty people who hardly cared just to get a shot at wrestling in front of ten thousand people who probably cared just as much. 

was it ever really about the idea of...of _glory_? of title belts and accolades, when none of it really mattered?

the best part would always be the company, late nights spent, laughing with people he never would’ve gotten to know if he’d stayed in kentucky. trent and drew and johnny and excalibur and...and…

and orange. the best part of...anything, really. chuck could win the belt and lose it in his first defense, and...and it would matter but. as long as he had orange, as long as orange was always there, it’d be alright. he wished he was there, in his corner. cheering him on…

but he didn’t want orange to see him lose, as dumb as that was because orange had seen him lose countless times, it probably wouldn’t even register. he’d just be...there. to comfort him. he didn’t know, the idea of orange’s hands, soft on his face, cupping his cheeks after zack knocked him out, it made him feel...better. not good but better.

but it wasn’t going to happen. orange wasn’t there, it was just him and zack and the thought of orange and the future and the past, all of it swirling around in his brain.

zack was approaching him again, he needed to get out of his head. he chopped zack’s chest and nearly fell with it. every part of his body was singing in horrible protest, he was tired and sore and it was probably over but. whatever. he just wished it was less embarrassing, wished again that orange was there to comfort him.

call me when you win. orange wasn’t there but...also...call me anyway. it would be alright. a part of him already knew that orange...y’know…

chuck dug real deep, found any energy he had, deep in his body. whatever. he needed to do something, needed to prove that…

he ran at zack. and zack dodged, easily. sliding behind before his tired mind could even register. right. zack didn’t go through a whole stack of chairs like he did. 

and then he was going up, staring back up at the ceiling. the disco ball hanging on the vent above the ring, he had realistically noticed it before but he couldn’t help but stare up at it. partially because he was going over zack’s shoulder, but it caught the light and his eyes. the light at the back of his eyes. whatever, he was going over zack’s shoulder and the disco ball was there and then the mat was rushing up to hit his back…

or, well, his back was rushing down to meet the mat. release german suplex, landing high on his shoulders, momentum rolling him through. chuck crawled the extra few inches into the corner, the turnbuckle digging awkwardly into his back.

zack wasn’t going to let him breathe though, running uppercut. it stung like hell, rattled him. a second, there was nowhere for him to go. stuck in a four-cornered hell of his own making. he thought that he tasted blood in his mouth for just a moment but it was a taste in his mouth that was metallic in different ways than blood. foul, cold, not like blood. it faded fast, zack was coming back at him, his brain moving in slow motion, anger darkened brown eyes coming at him.

a third might kill him. his feet were up, up on the bottom rope, carrying him upward. his knee hit zack’s face so hard that it sort of hurt himself. definitely not as bad as it hurt zack though, he rocked back. desperation winning over exhaustion and, fuck, was he tired? 

but he was also desperate, so desperate. every time he thought he’d be fine with losing, every time zack got him down, something just fired him up to keep going. he needed to win, a bright light at the back of his eyes. golden plates.

fuck. he just...needed to win. or, if he lost, he needed it to make sense. chuck still couldn’t understand why he was trying but he felt raw, open, hurt, self aware in that weird way. whatever happened, it had to mean something. zack was charging in and it had to mean...had to mean something.

he caught him, could feel zack trying to wiggle out of his hold. the turnbuckle was right there, he knew that he had to try. try to end the fight sooner rather than later, had to use his desperation for...for something. it had to mean something.

he hauled him up and...and down he went, head between his legs, cracking onto the mat. awful waffle off of the turnbuckle, it had to mean something...it had to be enough, he had to be enough.

one…

_two…_

it wasn’t enough. he should’ve known, it was rare that he got the pin off of the turnbuckle assisted awful waffle. maybe he hadn’t learned anything, he didn’t know why he had expected anything other than zack kicking out at two. still, he shot three fingers up at knox, hopeful that it had actually been enough.

yeah. of course not.

he knew that it wouldn’t be enough, knew that he’d have to try again. finger drawn against his throat, hands slipping into short, sweaty brown hair to pull him up to his feet. he tossed zack up into the air again, trying to haul him back down. but zack wasn’t going to let him just do it again, catching him with a knee to the face and rolling through, getting chuck pinned. their fingers laced together and he arched high.

it was a tight hold and a strange one as well, zack bridging up above him, chuck looking up at his sweaty back. with their fingers laced together, it was hard to get the momentum needed to kick out but he got it after the two count, pushing up, unbalancing zack. he’d been thinking it a lot but...not like that. not to some wonky bridging pin.

still, the near fall fired him up a little. he saw his window, zack staggering up to his feet after chuck had pushed him off into a heap, a little unsteady. he came in quick, kicking him in the stomach to double him over, arms around his neck, pulling him down onto his head for a ddt. flat on his back, looking back up at that disco ball hanging above the ring.

it would be funny if it fell on his head. probably make twitter pretty happy. why was he thinking about this? he didn’t know, but it made him laugh a little in his head. gifs of him getting smashed in the brain by a disco ball, what was a little more cte anyway? he hung on, pulling zack but, but maybe he was a little too distracted by his dumbass brain, zack hanging onto his arm and kicking up, trying to break him down further. his wrist that time, like his ankle and his shoulder and his neck, breaking down every part of him. dismantling him.

yeah, they probably couldn’t be friends again. zack really wasn’t just trying to win the match, he was trying to break down every part of him. probably couldn’t grab a beer with the guy after that. or maybe it’d just take time. if zack didn’t leave like everyone else did, didn’t go to wwe like all of his other friends seemed to do, maybe they’d be in some shit town somewhere with no one else to hang out with after the show and they could find a place that was open past eight pm. 

and it wouldn’t be like how it had been in the past, before all of this. but it’d be fine in that time made all things fine. smoothed over, a little softer with age. the belt far behind both of them. they’d sip beer and talk about old times, better and worse times. the belt, reseda in july, maybe about how they used to be closer, self referential in a way without even talking about their issues. 

eventually, zack would ask about...y’know. about orange. he told him so long ago how he felt, but zack hadn’t really kept up in that way that old friends sometimes don’t. and he’d ask him, like, ‘hey, did you ever tell him…’

he’d have to tell him. he couldn’t hold it inside any longer, couldn’t bear it if he had to tell that future zack that, no, he hadn’t told him. that he had chickened out again, that he never thought he was...he was _worthy_ of it. because he had tapped out to the article 50 that zack had him in or that he’d been choked out again by that triangle sleeper, because he based his worth solely on what happened in a wrestling ring.

orange’s face had been so strange when he’d asked him what he should do when he lost, a part of him expecting orange to say not to call him. like orange figured he was just going to win it, but he’d said to call him anyway. like it was obvious or something, but nothing was obvious to chuck.

nothing had ever been obvious, nothing ever came easy. ricochet in his backyard, picking up moves like it was nothing. like it wasn’t hard for him, like it was obvious, easy.

he really was just lucky. that suited him fine, he supposed, fighting through the pain and his own brain and getting his foot on the bottom rope. he could feel zack’s frustrations starting to mount, could see it in those brown eyes, breathing heavily as he broke. he moved slow, practically crawling over to chuck and snatching his hand up to wrench back on his fingers.

just another part of him, breaking down. he stood and zack stood with him, still wrenching on his fingers, holding him tight, arm extended out and _oh_ , he saw his opportunity. maybe there were things that did come easy to him, scouting it out, foot on zack’s face, falling back for sole food. 

he stared back up at that disco ball and thought that, hey, at least he was on his back because of his own actions.

chuck didn’t stay down there for long though, he couldn’t. not when zack was down, not when he had a match to win, not when he could finally prove that…

he hauled zack up, trying to go for an awful waffle again, trying to put him away one and for all. but zack floated over, clearly not wanting to go down either, sweeping out his legs. his face nearly hit the mat, catching himself at the last second, and zack folded him up like a fucking accordion, bridging over, both middle fingers high in the air.

it was actually a little funny. they used to be friends. whatever, he certainly couldn’t lose like that, managing to kick out of his bizarre hold. zack was full of them apparently, bizarre holds and submissions. it made him dangerous, made him hard to prepare for. drew was sort of like that, hard to prepare for, but he was a hell of a lot less bendy.

zack came back at him, of course he did, but chuck got his head between his legs and sat back, short piledriver. he tried to cover but it wasn’t enough, zack really was bringing his best…

or maybe chuck’s best wasn’t good enough. maybe zack was the one guy he couldn’t beat at pwg. but the crowd was chanting his name like...like they didn’t see what he saw. like they didn’t think he was no good, like they thought he was...y’know. _good_.

maybe he was good. maybe he was good because people thought he was good. the crowds, yeah, but the people he knew too. people he’d known for years. maybe that mattered. maybe it all mattered and he wasn’t the worst…

it put an idea in his head. he didn’t know how he felt about it, but it made him want to try in ways he’d never tried before. maybe was worth...maybe he was worth loving or something close to loving. he didn’t know, he was trying to wrestle for a shitty belt and his brain couldn’t stop thinking. he figured he could get zack back up, powerbomb him, win it all, but reality sunk back in and zack was just as rallied as he was. 

just as fired up…

he reversed, got him into some sort of shoulderlock, using his own weight, knocking him down to the mat. he reached for the rope but...but zack had weakened every part of him. spread him thin and eager and angry and sad. every emotion, thinned out for a crowd that believed in him for some reason. for some fucking reason, he was reaching for the rope and zack grabbed his other arm, wrenched it back and…

they used to be friends. zack telling him that he should tell orange that he was in…

his heel hit the rope. it had to mean something...had to mean something to zack. it meant something and it wasn’t something good, but it was something. every part of him that he wanted to dismantle. every part of chuck that he wanted to break. tilted over, falling and falling and falling, as hard as he tried to keep himself up. the bottom rope, his savior, and zack was pulling himself over to the corner. ripping at the laces, yanking that turnbuckle pad off, tossing it away like it was garbage. like it meant nothing.

like how chuck meant nothing. they used to be friends, the turnbuckle digging into his skin, his salvation. it all used to matter but zack was yanking it away, trying to take it all. he couldn’t get it off. he’d barely gotten his leg onto the ropes and zack was...zack was punishing both of them. wrestling in a broken ring, wrestling a broken man, he didn’t know. maybe every part of him was broken, maybe his emotions changed at the drop of a hat. his salvation, gone.

zack had to get one of the ring crew members to help and chuck could only watch, watch as the guy pulled a wrench out to take that bottom rope off…

he’d never seen that before. not on purpose at least. he’d certainly never seen the pwg ring crew pull the bottom rope off during a match. but zack was doing it like it was his last option and the crowd was cheering for him like he never thought they would. like he mattered. like any of it mattered. but the ropes were coming off and it felt like it mattered because…

because he had driven zack to it. zack couldn’t...couldn’t beat him, not with the rope breaks. it was like chuck was breathing down his neck, staying in the game because...because he had gotten lucky…

because he was skilled. because he’d faced zack before and knew that he couldn’t rely on winning like that. zack was removing the ropes and it was because he was...he was scared. of chuck. because chuck mattered and he was important and...people were rooting for zack but they were certainly more on chuck’s side.

he knew that he should probably stop zack, at least try to do it. and knox should definitely do something about it. chuck looked over at him and he looked just as surprised as he did, like he was powerless to stop him even though he had all of the power technically. shit was really breaking down, maybe it had broken down the moment excalibur gave him that second title shot. or maybe he had broken down long before then, maybe drew was right about not missing it. or right about not wanting to miss it.

the bottom rope fell, finally, clattering with a metallic thump against the mat. his last hope, probably. what else could he do, trying to struggle up to his feet and do something.

and then zack was looping the ropes around his neck and-- _jesus_. his hands scrabbled uselessly, clawing, trying to get zack to stop choking him.

he'd said that zack would have to kill him. maybe he was going to. they used to be friends. his friends, it would be a little awkward if trent just let him die although he guessed that he wouldn't really have to worry about seeing him again.

but knox was actually pulling zack off, hot air rushing into his lungs as he tried to remember how to breathe again. he wished he was outside, the air wasn't exactly fresh in reseda but it'd be cooler out there at least, the legion hall felt like an oven as he struggled to catch his breath. 

he had to sit up, hands at his throat, wheezing, trying to get the air back into his lungs. zack really had tried to kill him or, at the very least, knock him out like that. he'd probably get over it some day. they could probably be friends again. whatever. he was friends with a lot of people who had physically hurt him.

zack kicked him, tried to kick him down again. and that wasn't really going to work for him. he took it, took the punch. it sort of lit a fire under his ass, zack had taken the bottom rope and had choked him with it, and he knew that he was going to go down if he didn’t get his shit together, if he didn’t act. he had to stand, screaming like a real freak as he hit zack with a lariat, turned him inside out. he fell and he knew that he had to act, trying to snatch him up, trying to end it before he could get a chance to take advantage of the rope being off, locking him in a hold that he couldn’t break.

well, more so than choking him out. that was definitely taking advantage of the ropes. but, like, in ways that could win him the match.

it didn’t matter, the lariat wasn’t enough, zack floated over like he was the hot fucking air in the reseda hall, like it was nothing, chuck bearing all of his weight as he got him in that damned triangle sleeper.

again. fuck, again. like before, like in february.

and he wasn’t going to go down to the triangle sleeper, not again. not again, he couldn’t, but it was getting hard to breathe and he was fading, that bright light dimming at the back of his eyes. he did the only thing he could think of, which was to fall forward, but zack just modified his hold, getting him in an arm bar, working his sore arm again, getting both arms in his grasp.

and then he was adapting, moving, zack always moved and adapted, it was why he couldn’t fucking beat him. the guy had, like, a thousand different holds and submissions, and they all had complicated, weird names and he didn’t know half of them but he was looping his arm around his neck and, _oh_ , chuck knew the name of that one…

zack was locking him in a god damned chikara special. the one that bad guys, rudos, couldn’t escape from. he was a bad guy once and the bottom rope was gone, and wouldn’t it be fitting to lose like that? at least it would mean something, at least to him. his past, coming back like a fucking ghost to haunt him.

golden blond hair, a bright light at the back of his eyes. that was where he met orange, dumb kids with shit to prove, had he even proven anything? had he learned a fucking thing? he could’ve said it back then, told him right away, he knew right away that…

that he loved orange. that he fucking loved him and that orange loved him back, and he was a damn fool for not having said it earlier. for not letting himself say it because he didn’t think he deserved to love him, when orange deserved to hear it every day.

he shifted over, stretching his leg out as far as it could go. luckily it was pretty far, reaching up and landing on the middle rope. power of love or something cheesy like that, soul seeking road trip, he never needed to find his soul, he just needed to be able to see it…

or maybe he didn’t want to be the chikara guy tapping out to the chikara special. so he got there, got to the middle rope.

for once, it was zack’s turn to have his plans fail. he’d gotten chuck down like that before but not again, he had learned something. he wasn’t just...he wasn’t going to fail to the same things, to the parts of his brain that were telling him he wasn’t worth anything. maybe he was worth...maybe he was worth _something_.

golden hair. golden plates, golden plates far too close, cracking against his skull. his brain, rattling around up in there, not like he was really using it too much but it was rattling around and he was falling, falling hard, crashing against the mat. he hadn’t even seen him pick the belt up, hadn’t seen him barely push knox away before cracking him in the skull with it.

he blinked bleary eyes up at zack, holding the belt up at knox, like...like he was asking knox what he was going to do about it. wanting to be disqualified, he’d keep the belt if he was disqualified, it wouldn’t mean anything to him. he could be disqualified and, technically, chuck would’ve won but he wouldn’t get the belt. what a dumb rule, if zack lost, he should lose the belt, what was stopping him from just kicking chuck in the balls the second the bell rang?

well, it was a little late to think about that. zack was daring knox to disqualify him and knox wasn’t going to do it, waving his arms, telling zack to keep the match going, to do it right. he tried to stand but his vision hadn’t cleared up and zack was on him, pinning him down and he didn’t think that he’d be able to kick out, would...would this be it? his head hurt, he sort of wanted to just...give in. call me anyway.

one…

“y’know what? no, i’m not going to count that, you hit him with the fucking belt.”

and he heard that through the fog in his brain, knox refusing the count. his eyes widened, zack’s did too, tossing him down onto the mat to go and threaten knox over it. and it wasn’t like he could count knox in the admittedly long list of personal friends who believed in him, he was just trying to keep things fair. it was his job after all, to be fair but...still. maybe he needed to buy the guy a beer if zack didn’t kill him first.

and knox pushed him back and chuck really needed to buy him a beer, coming up, rolling zack up. he’d take it, he’d take the roll up pin. it’d be fine, he’d win, that was what mattered, it didn’t really need to mean something. he just needed to win it all. but zack kicked out at two, standing up and…

well. he really was determined to get disqualified. full blown kicking him in the balls, right there in front of knox. who did that? who just kicked someone square in the sack, right in front of the ref?

...alright, well. he’d changed. he might’ve done it in the past, but it was different. he was different now, and he was laying on the mat, pain radiating all over him. it was worse than going through that stack of chairs, zack full blown kicking him in the nuts. who did something like this? fuck.

fuck, he was in so much pain. and knox was looking down at him, looking between them. he’d seen enough, shaking his head and chuck was in so much pain, so much fucking pain, but knox was shaking his head like...like he was going to end the match. disqualify zack, end the match, zack retaining for cheating, winning it all…

a bright light at the back of his eyes. call me when you win. golden plates, golden blond hair, a bright light at the back of his eyes. knox was shaking his head and it was fading…

his hand shot out, gripping knox’s ankle and shaking his head so desperately. not like that, please, not like that.

not like that.

knox shook his head one more time but stepped back. not like that. he couldn’t let them count him out, and zack was kicking him out of the ring to argue with knox, trying to get him counted out or something. he didn’t know, he was on the floor, he couldn’t hear what was going on but the pain in his balls was fading and he had some time…

and, well. he’d texted trent at some point. unthinkingly, it had barely registered in his mind. just a little insurance under the ring. he was a deathmatch legend after all, pulling the little envelope from under the ring, clutching it close to his chest. it was all kept close to the chest after all.

he made his way back into the ring. close to his chest. zack stepped hard on his sore wrist and he gasped in pain, letting zack take the envelope. so much for his insurance. maybe he should’ve made a bigger deal out of it, or kept it closer to his chest. he could only watch, defeated, as zack showed the envelope to knox like he was trying to get him disqualified. he’d lose then as well, the deck really stacked up against him.

“i don’t care. fuck it. i don’t care.” knox said, throwing his hands up and…

and zack dumped the contents of the envelope out, scattering thumb tacks everywhere. deathmatch legend. setting up his own failure, a stack of chairs and an envelope full of tacks.

he tried to stagger to his feet, tried to do...to do something. shining silver tacks, golden plates, catching the light, catching his head and his body as zack lifted him up and slammed him down over his back into the tacks, pushing into his skin, tiny points all over his back and arms, the back of his head. chuck sat up quickly, trying to get himself out of the tacks, but zack just kicked him right back down into the mess.

piercing his skin, he could feel blood already starting to run, hot down his back. hot like the reseda sun, the legion hall in july. he sat back up, dazed, and that foot was coming back for him, smug look on zack’s face. it fell, quickly, as chuck caught his leg, soon replaced with horror, zack trying to stagger back but there was nowhere for him to go.

chuck got up on him, on his back, arm looped around his neck, his weight on zack’s back. he forced him to carry all of his weight on his neck, sleeper hold, and zack…

well. he fell backwards, putting chuck right back down into the tacks. probably not his best idea, but he was working with fumes and fighting through the pain, the fog in his head, that bright light in the back of his head, starting to fade fast.

everything was fading and he was desperate, maybe he’d always been desperate. maybe that was obvious, what kind of person drove across the country to wrestle for a belt if they weren’t desperate? desperate and with something to prove, golden plates, golden blond hair, he needed to prove that he was worth something. worthy of the belief that his friends had for him, the fans too, and worth of...worthy of being loved by orange. and worthy of loving him.

he sat up, trying to go for another submission, trying to get his arms around zack but zack, as light as air, just floated over, getting his arm back in the article 50. trying to break down every part of him, and maybe it was time that he was broken. he was sore and covered in thumbtacks, every part of him hurt.

and...and yet, it still felt like it was worth it. drew didn’t miss it but he would. he tried to get up, out of the article 50, but zack just transitioned as simple as ever, getting him back into that triangle sleeper. he’d learned, he knew how to counter it, but everything was starting to fade and he was so...so tired. he was tired and maybe it would just be easy to give it up, maybe he had fought hard enough that people would still care about him.

he fought to get on his knees, but it was just more of his weight for zack to pull on. he stared down at zack, brown eyes fierce as he looked up at him, smug as always. they used to be friends. 

and maybe he’d fought enough but he still couldn’t help but feel like...like he was the dumbest guy alive. it was the move that put him down in february, maybe he hadn’t learned a damn thing, and wasn’t it typical? everything he thought, everything he’d worked to learn about himself, soul seeking road trip, all gone just in the face of one potential failure. he couldn’t hear the crowd over the roar of his ears, were they even making any noise at all? stunned into silence by their disappointment, that’d teach them to believe in chuckie t. chant his name, see what happens. that drunk guy was right. probably the only guy who was right in the entire building because...

really, no one should have expected anything different. this was just who he was, a guy who couldn’t make it happen when it really counted. zack had him in that same damn hold and he sure as shit wasn’t going to tap, but the black border around his vision was starting to rush in fast, eyes slipping shut.

he was a failure. chuckie failure, that guy had it right, maybe the crowd should chant that instead. he wasn’t ever the main character of this story, just some guy’s stupid best friend in zack’s life story. everyone was going to move on, leave him just like drew and johnny had, just like ricochet was going to get signed and trent was going to go solo, and orange…

orange was going to…

his feet found the mat, stopping his brain from floating into that bad place again. solid ground under him, stable. no one had left him behind, not really. not in any way that mattered. he blinked his bleary eyes open just in time to see zack’s own eyes widen, just in time to see his hand curl around zack’s neck. he hauled zack up as high as his tired arms would alarm and power bombed him right back down, right into the tacks.

zack wasn’t used to that. he wasn’t a fucking death match legend. chuck had to laugh, had to smile a little, falling hard against the second rope to catch his breath for just a moment. zack was hurting, hurting a lot.

maybe he was just lucky. maybe every bad thing he thought about himself was true, maybe he shouldn’t base his self worth about what happened in a wrestling ring. 

maybe it was fucked up that this was the closest thing he’d ever had to therapy. 

but...but he saw his opportunity there, zack laid out in the tacks, trembling with pain. more than just winning the match, but...but the opportunity to go in the back, find his phone and...and call orange. tell him how he really felt. the goal beyond the belt, maybe even his real goal. golden plates, golden blond hair.

he wasn’t going to let any of it slip through his grasp. he was going to be the person that everyone thought he was, the person that _orange_ thought he was. worthy of being loved and worthy of loving in return.

he stood off the rope, staggering to his feet, staring over at zack. a smile broke out over his face, a slow growing grin. everything felt like it was moving in slow motion, zack pushing up to his knees, putting him in the perfect position for chuck to come up behind him.

chuck hauled him up, flipping him up high into the air, head between his legs as he sat back hard, awful waffle. his last shot, his last hope. he didn’t waste any time, crawling over, fighting through the pain, through the fog in his brain.

a bright light at the back of his eyes. he covered him, knox hitting the mat immediately to make the count and the crowd chanted along, voices raising higher, higher than the one in chuck’s own head. desperately hooking zack’s leg.

one.

desperation melted away into finality. zack wasn’t moving under him, he wasn’t going anywhere. they used to be friends. 

he wasn’t in his way anymore.

two.

this was it. he knew it was it, knew that the belt was his. maybe he knew it the whole time or maybe he’d just needed to figure it all out before he knew for certain. he was still covered in tacks, bruised and banged up, cut open so deep that he thought everyone could see deep inside of him.

he was stitched together, made new and whole, and everything was golden, golden plates, golden blond hair and he wasn’t hurting that bad for once in his life and he felt good, he felt...he felt loved and...golden. and it wasn’t perfect of course but the world was with him, the crowd was with him, they were always with him, chanting to the count, hesitating as knox’s hand hit the mat that one last time.

_three_.

and time stood still, just for a moment, just before the crowd erupted.


	7. 07/07/2017, after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _forget your past, this is your last chance now_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, so. this is it, huh? the last chapter of this story. i really can't believe i managed to finish it. thank you so much for reading it, i have more to say in the final notes. but thank you.
> 
> chapter song is "home" by lcd sound system. 
> 
> please enjoy.

he was still covered in thumbtacks when he walked into the back, belt slung over one shoulder, trent’s arm over the other. and it felt weird, not real, not deserved, but the weight of the belt was heavier than the thought it was and yet he felt light...good, even. his nuts hurt like hell, his entire body was in pain, but...yeah. he felt good.

it hadn’t sunk in yet fully. wasn’t quite real yet. finality melting away into uncertainty.

he shrugged trent off easily, turning to him. and trent smiled, good natured as he reached over to pick a tack out of his arm.

“want me to help you pick those out?” he asked, dropping the tack on the ground like an animal.

“yeah, just...in a minute. i have to make a call.”

and trent’s smile turned a little wry, a little knowing.

“go call him. i’ll help you after.” trent said, and chuck nudged him, grinning despite himself.

it was a short distance to the back room that they all used as a locker room, the legion hall wasn’t a particularly large place after all. the locker room was full for the most part, wrestlers busy with getting ready to go back to their hotels or hit the bars. they paused and stared at him for a bit, applauding a little awkwardly. chuck laughed softly, waving everyone off as they congratulated him, trying to fight his way over to his bag.

excalibur was the first to actually stop him, pulling him into a big hug, like he forgot that he was covered in tacks.

“you should’ve heard me when you got that three count, man,” he said, grinning wide enough that he could see his face shift through the mask, “congratulations, i knew you could do it.”

“thanks, ex,” chuck responded, giving him a big smile of his own, “now, where’s this winner’s share of the purse i’ve heard so much about.”

excalibur pretended to think about for a moment. it was almost strange to see him in person, after having been on the road for so long, motels shitty and less-shitty, endless asphalt and telephone conversations, he was a real human being, masked face, real human body, standing right in front of chuck.

excalibur was real, everything was real. the open road, the belt in his arms, everything was real, it was happening. even if it still felt like a dream, like he’d wake up in albuquerque or oklahoma city or indianapolis or philadelphia, somewhere still far from reseda. waking up in philadelphia could be nice, at least he’d have orange at his side.

“i’ll consider buying your first drink.” excalibur said, and chuck laughed.

“better be some top shelf shit, i’m your biggest draw now.”

“mid-shelf at best.” he said, after a few moments of consideration.

“i’ll take it.” chuck said.

hot dog and a handshake. hot dog over a hamburger. a title belt and mid-shelf liquor, mid-shelf liquor over the well booze. nothing in life changed, not really. life just...existed. he didn’t know, he was just living it. not thinking about anything but the man waiting for him on the end of the line.

they agreed to go to their usual spot, and chuck pushed on past everyone, practically running into ricochet as he tried to avoid letting the congratulations turn masturbatory.

“congratulations, man,” he said, to the belt, “well deserved.”

and he clapped the belt slung over his shoulder, eyes never leaving it, looking at his own reflection in the golden plates. his hand rubbed it for a little too long, they were friends of course but...he was still ricochet after all. maybe they’d never been friends. hot kentucky summers, doing all of the moves he showed him way better than he ever could. but he had the belt, not ricochet, so…

at least that was something. the one thing he could hold over him.

“yeah,” chuck said, to ricochet’s downturned head, “it is.”

“i’ll be seeing you later.” ricochet said, finally raising his head to look him in the eyes.

and chuck had to laugh. he’d beaten ricochet before, he could do it again. still, he held the belt a little closer to his shoulder, adjusting his hold so ricochet’s hand slid off of it.

“you always do.”

he brushed past him as well as the rest of the people who wanted to congratulate him, whether they were hungry for their shot at the new champ, _fuck_ , he was the new champ, or if they were genuinely happy for him. after all, there was really only one person he actually wanted to talk to.

his phone was in his bag, thrown into the locker room haphazardly as he had practically ran into the building. someone, trent probably since it was by his stuff, must’ve brought it somewhere a little less in the way. it nearly slipped out of his hand from all the sweat, gross, but he managed to fumble to unlock it, skipping past all of the texts from guys like drew, gargano, even icarus and akuma, heading to recent contacts and calling him up. call me when you win.

orange answered on the first ring, and chuck leaned against the wall, suddenly unbothered by the pain and the eyes on his new title. 

“well?” he said, direct, voice warm through the line.

“you’re not going to believe it.”

and orange laughed his usual little laugh, creaky and soft, enough to make chuck feel warm all over. like something had been missing until he heard it.

“knew you could do it. congrats, we’ll have to celebrate when you get back.”

aw shit, he was going to have to drive all the way back. fuck, that sucked. but, at the same time, driving home didn’t sound so bad when orange would be there waiting.

“yeah, you’re talking to the new pee-dubya-gee champ, baby, of course we’re celebrating.”

orange laughed again, a little louder. the way he laughed with his whole chest, bursting out of him. he knew the laugh, it was usually accompanied by an eye roll, so familiar to him.

and he was struck by such a deep need, bubbling up in his chest. every feeling in his body, orange deserved to hear it. he deserved to hear it every fucking day of his life. he needed to tell him. knew that he needed to, buzzing on his tongue. carbonated words, fizzing in his mouth.

“hey. orange, look, there’s something i need to tell you. i--”

but then orange was interrupting him.

“chuck. i know,” he said, voice still warm, “just...don’t say it for the first time over the phone. you’ll be home soon, okay?”

well, okay. he could deal with that, just a few more days. another drive, fuck. maybe he could fly and pay some service to drive his car. winner’s share of the purse. mid-shelf liquor and diet coke.

yeah, he was going to have to drive.

“yeah, i’ll be home soon. i can wait.” he said, what was a few more days in the grand scheme of ten years?

he wondered what orange was doing then. it was late in philly, later than it was in reseda, but he still couldn’t help but picture him, sleep-rumpled and sun-gold in front of the coffee maker. he really should’ve leaned down and kissed him that morning but, well...he had time to make up for it.

“maybe i’ll even say it back.” orange said and chuck laughed, shifting his hold on the gold plate of the belt, fingers spread out.

“yeah? is it because i’m the pwg champion now?” chuck asked, grinning down into the receiver.

“no. maybe i just want to say it back.”

and that put...something into his chest. warm. comfortable. he laughed into the receiver and it was comfortable. he really couldn’t wait to say it to him, but he needed to, just a few more days. but he wanted to say it so bad, he had to say something that was the next best thing.

“yeah? well, then, i’m really looking forward to seeing you,” he said, and then, “i wish you were here right now. you should’ve come with me.”

"i wish i did."

at the same time though, he was sort of glad that orange wasn’t there with him. he probably wouldn’t have been able to figure any of this out if he had been there, probably wouldn’t have realized that orange was more important to him than any belt, that he was in love with him and had been for ten years. but, at the same time, he could picture him, golden like the plates on the belt, soft in his arms, helping him pick the tacks out instead of trent. leaning up to kiss the grimace off of his lips.

it was a good thought. orange’s voice was warm through the line though, warm enough that he could feel it in his chest. he’d be there soon, he could tell him, and it was good.

“hey, babe, i gotta go, okay?” he said, leaning against the locker, cold against his burning arm.

“okay. i’ll talk to you later.” orange said, and chuck laughed a little, because orange sounded tired in that organic way.

a part of him had forgotten that it was later there at home, at orange’s side, in philly.

he’d probably go to sleep sooner rather than later, and time would pass by quicker for him. he wondered what orange’s tomorrow looked like. sun gold hair, standing in front of the coffee maker. it was earlier than it was in reseda, had...had orange woken up for him? neither of them were exactly early risers and, yet, orange was there to answer his every good morning text, sending sleep-warmed selfies of a smile that was probably more than he deserved.

but it made him feel golden inside, sun warmed hair, golden plates, a disco ball hanging high above that hadn’t fallen on his head. clear headed and good, and good, and…

and...better than good. so much better than good.

he knew that he had to let him go, knew that he had to let him go to sleep. but a part of him just wanted to stay on the line until he could feel the rhythmic, freight train-esque snores of orange coming in through the phone.

he’d really woken up early for his good morning texts and stayed up far too late for his good night texts, selfies and random thoughts when he stopped, eager and always there. attached to his phone for...for chuck.

he shifted, belt adjusted on his shoulder, and he thought that love wasn’t…

he didn’t know. it wasn’t red like...like roses, or the flush of his cheeks, spreading down all the way across his body. an eager look on his face, ready, waiting for chuck’s hands on his body. it was golden, golden blond hair, golden feeling spreading through his chest, a golden path leading him home. he loved orange and he knew that orange wanted him to wait to say it, but everything was golden. golden plates, golden blond hair in the morning sun, copper under the night sky when they’d trudge back to some shitty motel room. together, always together.

fuck that was so cheesy. roses, who the fuck did he think he was, some shitty little poet? but he should’ve said it back then, his hair yellow under sodium lights, both drunk enough that they were leaning against each other hard, like they needed the excuse. but orange’s voice was tired in that organic way but, otherwise, it was bright and clear and...and call me when you win, and he fucking won and…

everything was golden and warm, boiling up inside of him, bubbling for years and...

“yeah,” he said, because he would talk to him later, and everything was golden and warm and then, “i love you.”

a beat. two. _three_. fuck, he really had meant to keep it inside. he’d said he would, promised orange that he’d wait to do it in person. but, as much as he hadn’t meant to say it, saying it out loud felt...felt right. he’d waited for far too long to say it and he thought that he could wait through the rest of his drive home, get to their front door, orange waiting for him. sweeping him up in his arms, kissing him like he should’ve, and letting him hear those words that he deserved to hear every day.

he deserved to hear them every day, it was why he couldn’t wait, not a second more. he’d never thought that he’d want to say those words before, a shitty kid turned into something a little softer. but he’d loved him the whole time and...and orange deserved to hear it.

“chuck,” he whined, petulant after a pause, “you promised you’d wait.”

and chuck had to laugh because...yeah, he’d promised. and he could’ve waited, not said it for the first time in the legion hall locker room, old wood and musty smell. he could’ve waited until he was home, until orange was in his arms again, until he could smell him instead of smelling the persistent smell of sweaty socks.

he could’ve waited. but he shouldn’t have waited that long in the first place. he grinned into the receiver, picturing the little pout on his face, feeling warm and golden.

“sorry, baby.” he said, and orange scoffed a little.

“no you’re not.”

“yeah, i’m really not sorry.”

orange sighed, a little bitchy, a little fond. chuck could tell that he was giving up, the words curling on his tongue before he said them, even through the phone.

“i love you too,” he said, after a few beats, “even if i wish you waited.”

his grin only widened, leaning harder against the locker. because he loved orange and orange loved him back, and maybe he should’ve waited to say it but he had definitely waited far too long to let orange hear it. he deserved to hear him say it every day, and he couldn’t wait to be able to say it to him in person, see his face light up with it. their love. fuck, it really felt cheesy, he knew that everyone would clown on him hard if they heard him thinking such things but, well, they could go suck a big one.

he loved orange and...and nothing else really mattered. and maybe that was what he was looking for the whole time, not the belt or some other part of his soul, the courage to say it out loud. 

maybe there was no maybe about it.

chuck sort of wanted to keep talking to orange for the rest of the night, ditch drinks, keep the tacks in his body because none of it could hurt if orange’s voice was in his ear. he’d finally said it out loud, finally got it back in return. he just wanted to talk to him for the rest of the night. but excalibur came poking around the corner, ready to take him out, trent at his side and the tacks were starting to hurt and orange was starting to sound tired, frayed, so he let him off the line.

“i gotta go, baby. good night.” he said.

“promise me that you’ll call me when you’re on the road.” orange replied, fond and tired and golden.

call me when you win.

“i promise, orange. i’ll call you, i promise,” chuck said, lowering his voice a little, excalibur and trent staring at him, “i love you.”

“love you too.” orange replied, smile clear in his voice. 

and he meant it, they both did. hanging up with all sorts of promises in the air, the promise to tell him how he felt when he got back, in person this time, being able to say it and see it reflected back on his face. and the promise of calling him on the way home, the promise of the future, _their_ future. it all felt good, the belt on his shoulder, golden plates, golden hair, the man he _loved_ tucked under the other.

it was good. he was perpetually lucky and it was good.

he couldn’t read excalibur’s face through his mask, but he could read trent’s face as clear as day. the grin on his face, a little shit eating but mostly happy. happy for him, happy that he’d gotten his shit together. soul seeking road trip, what a weirdo.

but trent was pulling up a chair for him and starting the long process of getting all of those tacks out of his arm, the tacks he’d forgotten when talking to orange. he’d forget anything if he was talking to orange, forget an axe hanging out of his head if he could hear orange’s voice. the man that he loved, no hesitation. no more waiting, he loved orange and orange loved him, and he was squirming as trent helped him pull all of the tacks out of him. because, while they hurt way more going in than coming out, they still hurt coming out and wasn’t that fitting?

too obvious of a metaphor. he was full of em. but realizing that he was in love with orange and being able to say it out loud had been harder than anything. but he’d said it out loud, and the tacks were hitting the bottom of the barrel, and it really didn’t hurt that bad.

he loved orange and there was blood dripping down his arm, red like roses, golden like golden plates, golden hair, and...and he was okay. he wasn’t good, he’d probably never be good. wrestling as therapy, never a great option, but…but he felt okay like he’d never felt before. everything was working out and the thought of the lows, even his lowest lows, it didn’t sound too bad. that bright light, burning the back of his eyes, telling orange that he loved him. and excalibur, and trent, and drew, all answering their phones, ricochet there in that half-friendly way, it all felt...well. good. good in that alcohol-warmed sort of way, except he was sober, drunk on golden plates and golden hair, and, apologies that he didn’t mean in all of the best ways.

he felt lighter as trent kept plucking the tacks, excalibur coming over to help, even ricochet pulled one of the tacks before wandering off again, keeping it like a souvenir, freak. and drew was texting him, and so was johnny, all of the people he’d thought he’d lost, heads close enough to the ground that they’d heard. and drew was losing on two-oh-five live and johnny had lost his tag partner, but none of that mattered because they were there even though he would’ve gotten it if they ignored it completely.

they were bigger than him, bigger than a belt that didn’t really matter outside of reseda, but everyone was congratulating him like it meant everything, though text or over twitter, the world moving around him and, for once, it was alright to stand still and just take it in. the belt on his shoulder, tacks plucked out of his skin, sliding out easy.

shifting his phone up, he took a picture of himself, trent and excalibur working on him in the background. thought about posting it on twitter but his eyes were crinkled up in the corners, and he looked almost too happy to send to anyone but orange. and he’d let orange go to bed, but he could respond when he saw it later.

but orange was responding right away, a picture of his own, looking sleep warm and golden in his bed, chuck’s bed. he recognized his sheets, recognized the golden warmth in his chest. had he slept there the whole time, face pushed into his pillow, breathing his scent in, sleeping there, surrounded by him. he wanted to be there, wrapped around him, holding him in close, hands skimming down his bare side, down to his hip, a little lower perhaps and--

“woah, chuck’s getting nudes. nice, man.” trent said, peering over his shoulder, a little too loud, patting him a little too hard.

his cheeks burned and he fumbled to lock his phone, nearly dropping it in the process.

“shut up,” he said, petulant, like a child, “no i’m not, shut up, trent. don’t look at him.”

“you shut up,” trent responded, “don’t look at nudey pics of a little red hunk when i’m taking tacks out of your arm if you don’t want me to see em too.”

“i hate you so much,” he said, flustered, and then, “he’s not naked, just shirtless. shut up, man.”

well, probably not. he knew how orange slept, he didn’t sleep naked, just shirtless, wearing his briefs. the idea made him blush either way, especially with trent pointing it out, loud enough that the whole locker room could hear. he didn’t want them to think that he was some sort of pervert, looking at naked pictures of orange on his phone in public. already ruining his reputation as champ, thanks, trent. what a jerk.

he was probably just jealous that orange would send him nudes. well, he possibly would, chuck hadn’t ever really asked. but...he didn’t know. he should stop thinking about orange’s naked little body before he had to take the belt off of his shoulder and stick it in his lap instead.

trent left it alone after that, setting back to picking tacks out of his arm, and chuck set his phone down to look up at him, concentrated look on his face. it was almost funny, he was so focused on pulling the tacks out like it was the most important thing to him, fingers searching through his hair to pull some out of his scalp. gentle, pulling them out and tossing them into the trash, excalibur was working on his arm a little less gently, talking to each other over his head about nothing in particular.

where they were going to go for drinks, what they were going to do the next day. chuck knew what he was going to do, he was going to get into his shitty little honda civic and start the long drive back, the drive home. nothing in his head but thoughts of orange, the belt in his passenger side seat, golden plates. he’d see him soon and that’d be enough to keep going.

maybe he could just sell his car out here in reseda, hop a plane, get to him sooner. winner’s share of the purse. he probably wouldn’t be able to afford another car, not to mention that he felt like he owed it the chance to get him back home. he could stay an extra day, that’d probably make everything a little easier, but he didn’t want to wait any longer. he wanted to go and see orange, needed to show him the belt and the love he felt for him, in person, not over the phone.

sun warmed and sleepy in the morning. maybe he’d drive straight through on the last night, get there right in time for orange to wake up, see him all sun gold and smiling at the sight of him, joining him in the bed they’d share from then on. he’d offer to show him the belt, but orange would say that he could show him later, because it wasn’t ever about the belt, it...it was about him. and them, together.

maybe it shouldn’t have taken a drive across the whole country to see it. soul seeking road trip. such bullshit, maybe he was the biggest idiot alive. but orange...orange loved him back, had seen the worst parts of him and decided to love him regardless. even though he didn’t have to, he could really have anyone, but he didn’t want anyone, he wanted chuck and chuck wanted him, and he got to have him.

he got the belt and the guy, and he had his friends, and it felt almost too good. like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it hadn’t dropped. not yet. he was going to leave the heat of the legion hall in july, belt over his shoulder, orange waiting for him back at home and…

the last tack hit the bottom of the barrel. he wondered how many were in there, it felt like a lot but, looking down into the trash can, it didn’t really look like that many. still, trent patted his shoulder and smiled down at him, and he stood up, belt back over his shoulder.

“get changed and meet us outside, we’ll go get drinks.” excalibur said.

“okay, dad.” chuck said and he could feel ex glaring at him through the mask, grinning wide at him before turning away.

chuck grabbed his bag, heading over to the bathroom to get ready to go out. everyone else had finished getting changed and washing off while he’d been getting the tacks pulled out of him, leaving him alone in the bathroom. he stripped off his gear and set the belt on top of his bag, golden plates gleaming in the overhead lights, keeping it in his sight as he turned the water on and waited for it to warm up. like, if he set it out of his sights, it wouldn’t exist or something.

he showered quickly, washing away the sweat and blood, not taking too much time. he didn’t want to keep his friends waiting, after all, there was no time to take another ridiculously long shower. plus, the shower was kinda gross from everyone having used it and the hot water was mostly gone, so he made it quick, scrubbing off the layers of grime until his skin was pink and clean.

he stepped out of the shower, into the wall of heat that was the air of the legion hall. even without all of the bodies packed in, the place was still like an oven. he dried off and got dressed, shouldering his back and his title, starting to make his way out of the legion hall.

the place was empty, everyone having gone to their hotels or to grab dinner or drinks. old wood, he could still feel the energy, seeping out of the cracks. it was like the place was its own living thing, breathing and moving with him. 

weird. maybe he had been on the road for too long.

he walked out into the main room, the crew taking down the ring. at least they had one less rope they had to take down. chuck watched them for a bit, thought about helping out, but his friends were waiting for him so he left, thinking about drinks and dinner and making the drive back home to see orange.

stepping out into the night, chuck felt a little lighter, walking out of the legion hall. it really felt like shit was going right for the first time in his life. he had something to look forward to, beyond the drinks. and, yeah, it sucked having to do the same drive over again, starting that long journey east in the morning. but, with the title over his shoulder and someone waiting for him at home, he felt good. lighter, just a little bit.

sure, the belt wasn’t a cure all, he was right about that. his day had finally come and it hadn’t taken a lifetime, and everything just seemed...not _better_... 

just a little bit easier.

it was real. he had the belt and it was real. uncertainty melting away into reality.

and there was a lot he still didn’t know, about himself, about what it meant to be the person he was becoming. but, well…

for now, everything he knew was good. easier, golden, good. the belt on his shoulders, the man waiting for him at home, his friends around him. pulling him in, pulling him up, lifting him higher into the warmth. everything he knew was golden and, well. 

he could figure out the rest along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like anything other story i’ve written, this one started as a blank page in google docs, mocking me with its potential. i’ve always loved a road trip, before this fandom and fic, my personal life peppered with my own soul seeking road trips. every big life change i’ve ever had has started with a road trip so, when the idea of writing something about chuck winning the pwg belt came to me, a road trip was immediately my first thought.
> 
> being on the road for days on end, it really can change someone. re-inventing yourself over and over again, promises you’ll probably never end up keeping to yourself. a lot of this story ended up deeply personal, but it’s also a love letter to wrestling and a man who’s match ended up meaning more to me than i thought it did. and i really tried to weasel out of writing it too haha! i’ve written this fic in a lot of weird places, posted chapters when i wasn’t at home, and i’ve fretted over every single word. but i’m glad that i wrote it, i’m glad that i finished this entire fic, and i’m glad that i posted it.
> 
> i’d like to thank my friends, anyone who got a discord message at 2 am because i was worrying about the fic, anyone who encouraged me to post when i got nervous about it being too revealing or personal. in no particular order, dani, rach, nic, jc, mary, hoggiesthogmoment here on ao3, and ariel. i couldn’t have done it without you all. of course, i’d like to thank everyone else who followed along from that 250 word start, hopped on somewhere in the middle, or if you waited until it was finished to give it a try.
> 
> above all, i left a reflection of myself here on this page. thank you for seeing it. 
> 
> -mara

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, i hope you enjoyed it! you can find me on tumblr, @ [ or-ng-c-ss-dy ](https://or-ng-c-ss-dy.tumblr.com/).


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